I’m sitting in a coffee shop on 86th and Amsterdam.
I don’t know whose iPod they’re running through the sound system
But they’re also running it through my memories.
That Van Morrison song called up my old boyfriend – made me remember –
Either his affection for me or maybe it was mine for him.
Anyway he learned that song – learned to sing it, too, for me, he said.
When it all fell apart,
That was the song that would make me cry
Whenever it caught me off guard
Because when it caught me,
I was always off guard.
Hearing it here now
Calls me to attention (off guard again)
But doesn’t call up tears.
It’s almost like a little ghost memory
Springing up out of the soundscape, saying, “Remember me?”
And of course I do.
Then the song was over,
The next one blended back into the hubbub of voices and cappuccino machines –
Maybe the next as well, I can’t remember.
But then up came the voice of an old friend
Singing a melancholy tune.
The first flash of memory
Was music of association
The next was the actual voice
Of someone I once loved
Someone whose voice I’ve not heard in person
For many years
But hearing it even now
Makes me seventeen again –
Dumbstruck and enthralled in a dark club
On an empty dance floor, in a deserted bar
And a little outdoor festival
When music struck me deeper
When longing was my primary occupation
When a voice like that wrapped me up
And carried me around like a swaddled child.
Even as I write these words,
The iPod remembrance pulls out another to remember –
One that spun around on my record player
While I lay on my back staring at the ceiling
Aching for the future to hurry up and get here.
The Hamlet Project 