RIVERSONG

INTRODUCTION

Nearly all of the poems included in Riversong are new.

They are expressions of personal love, transcendental

realization, and my deep involvement with nature and music.

STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW, that starts off the FOREVER

SONGS Section, for example, is a journey from youth's first

realization of the power of music, when as a nine-year-old

boy, lying in bed, I held a plastic radio up to my ear, listening

to "The Grand Ol' Opry," and heard for the first time the

magical guitar of Chet Atkins. I had never heard anything

remotely like what he was doing with his music. I was transported

into the first heaven I had ever known.

That musical experience awakened me to the realization

that life itself is a stream, a river, an eternal flowng that

forever surrounds us and infuses us and carries us through

waves of music, which only sometimes do we become aware

of. Life is a RIVERSONG filled with light, fire, and beauty.

Life itself is that RIVERSONG.

As my life streamed on, other adventures appeared

to me in that music flow - such as running away from

home in Big Spring west Texas as a 14-year-old boy, hitchhiking

to Memphis, stealing a row boat, and sailing down

the Mississippi River.

That journey was the first of many adventures that

river-streamed through my life, including learning how to

drink beer as a college student, how to make love, and, later

on, how to play guitar, which hearkened me back to the music

of Chet Atkins. STREAM. . .RIVER. . .FLOW also includes

a mini-biography of my journey as the lead guitarist with a

"wild-haired singer" (which some readers will recognize as

Tim Buckley.)