haunted by geography

I'm always looking for modern day poets. Most of the time, they take on other forms-- they aren't publishing anthologies or sonnets in The New Yorker. Like Jonathan Harris, (a sort of visual poet) and of course, musicians. I think possibly the best living poets for me are The Indigo Girls.


The way they can hang a tone in the air, palpable, a kind of world building. You know exactly where you are. Pick a song, any song. Starkville, for example. Typically, I favor the songs that Emily writes (they're brighter or at least softer) when Amy's tend to be both darker & harsher. But Starkville.  Starkville sounds exactly the way I feel in the most melancholy part of my soul.


The way  that I have no idea what "haunted by geography means" except that I know exactly what it means.


Something to do with me being a nomad of sorts-- always trying to get back to someone; get to somewhere I've never been. Something to do with my times at YTI, as all things Indigo Girls have a way of doing. Some kind of connection to a foreign faith.  Some kind of abandoned town. The way I just keep moving and somehow that makes me feel still.


Ranier Maria Rilke said, "Things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life."


That's true. But I think Amy & Emily sure do bridge that gap between what's sayable & unsayable about an experience. I can't decide whether I know more about how this song makes me feel because they articulated so well, or because of what isn't articulated.


The ineffible. I'm going to come back to that. But for now...




If you were here in Starkville, the townie boys would love the way you stare.
If you were here in Starkville, the local girls , they wouldn't have a prayer.
I spent a reckless night inside the wonder of your everlasting charm,
now I'm haunted by geography, and the flora and the fauna of your heart.

At the dawning of some road worn day,
I called you on a whim just to say-
"The morning birds are singing",
but I could not do them justice, so I hung up and fell back to sleep.

I'm in love with my mobility, but sometimes this life can be a drag;
like when I noticed your nobility and how my leaving only held you back.
I remember one occasion- you were drinking,-when you asked me to the coast,
but I was hell bent on agony back then, so I missed the boat.

At the dawning of a road worn day,
I called you a whim just to say,
"My regrets become distractions when I can not do them justice",
then I hung up and fell back to sleep.

When I was down in Starkville, I was hiding out inside some Comfort Inn
from a local gang of troubadors, when the homecoming queen -she come riding in.
I slipped out of my room into the rain and I went running for my health.
The headlights turned to moonlight, and finally I was running by myself.

At the dawning of this road worn day,
I call you a whim just to say,
"The morning birds are singing".