songwriting

SO.....

I'm trying my hand at songwriting.  It is something that I've always aspired to do, but have always struggled with.  My dad, who is the most supportive father ever known to mankind, discovered a local songwriting class and let me sign up for it.  It is fantastic, even relaxing. 

We do these "object writings" every day where one person in the class sends out a word, and everyone responds with a 10-minute write.  It's supposed to be a bit abstract-- mostly just to get the creative juices flowing.  Here are a couple of mine. Could they be songs someday? 

Trees

Shafts of light land on the needlepoint ground where lodge pole pines stick up up up to the sky like pencils.  Perhaps they are skinny legs-- coming of age, layer by layer of rough bark.  They sit with me in blue knit shorts by the lake, and the sun bakes us both into brown.  And I've grown taller, as have they.  I could measure my life by those trees.  Summers where I am dashing down the pier and into the chilly water like a Countrytime Lemonade commercial, or gazing out the window as the squirrels take cover from the rain, or hearing tires crunch on the dirt road as my sister whispers to me, "We're almost there."  It's then that the trees silently stand-- watching, observing, logging my years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes.  Ever pointing upward-- like flagpoles, like toothpicks, like fingers.  And each year I go back to spend some time with them, and find out how we're doing.  

Sidewalk

In this foreign city the streets are narrower.  The sidewalks flow like rivers beside historic buildings where important people once lived, wrote, painted, or created.  They prance through spanning parks where little boys dressed like Christopher Robin bask in their childhood as though it were sunshine.  They dip into the business district where men in chalk blue dress shirts and loud ties smoke their cigarettes next to the sea of motor scooters, glancing at their watches, counting down to their nightly pub visit or cricket game or cozy flat.  The sidewalks lead to towering statues of old, presiding boldly over the city and its pigeons.  They turn into cobblestone squares, littered with musicians playing on makeshift instruments, street performers impressing the tourists, and groups selling food from all cultures prepared before your eyes.  They lead me into libraries and museums where (depending upon my mood) I can see evidence from VanGogh or Paul McCartney or Shakespeare or Jack the Ripper or a million others.  The sidewalks lead me along the riverbanks, across bridges older than my country, through parts of my soul that I didn't know existed.  They lead me away from childish things, toward meaningful relationships and wisdom beyond my years, filling in the gaps.  I want to fold them all up like a clean sheet of paper and stash them away in every pocket I have.  And as I get lost walking these sidewalks, I step off the curb where fat, white letters remind me to LOOK!