Wednesday
18th June, 2008
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A Thought for Today
Love will always give us reason, if not
means, to exist.
This
One Does It For Me!
Dear Ken,
A number of years ago now I saved one of Rod's columns because I
thought the poem that day was just the best thing I'd ever read.
I think it was a letter he'd written to a lover but never sent.
I've since lost the piece of paper and would be grateful if you could
publish it again one day.
Thank you.
Shirley
Rod created quite a stir back in 2001, Shirley, with a whole series of
"love letters unsent" so I'm not entirely sure which one you're
referring to.
At the same time a poem entitled "To One Absent" also attracted a lot of
favorable comment.
I've selected just one of the unsent letters, along with the poem, in
the hope that this is what you're looking for. If it isn't, drop me
another line and I'll try again.
A LOVE LETTER UNSENT, V
Dear You,
The phone will ring within the hour and you’ll be there. How have I
divined this with no prearranged signal from you, no flag raised, smoke
signal sent? I know it to be so, that’s all. Our minds are so in sync
across the miles that I can feel and see you moving to the telephone as
I preoccupy myself with foreplay on the page.
I finally got a haircut, did some mail, paid a bill or two and cleared
the way for real work this weekend, so the morning has seen some of
life’s business shuffled through removed from mental list. The cats have
trapped and tease a spider, excuse me for a minute while I save the day.
I am listening to a new recording of music from “The Cardinal,” I miss
the lyric “Stay with Me” that is not included. Come home and I will sing
it for you, meaning every word. Carolyn Leigh wrote the words to Jerome
Moross’ music. I don’t know why this song affects me as much as it does
but I can hear the Sinatra recording of it and weep. When I sing it at
concerts I approach it as equal parts love song and inspirational
anthem. I can seldom get through it without my concentration faltering
so I don’t perform it often.
I closed an album (Early Harvest) with a recording of “Stay with Me”
that had never been released. Even though I didn’t write it, it seemed
to me to sum up everything that had gone on in my life to that point.
That was seven years ago and before you came into my life again. I am so
humbled by the experience of loving you and knowing this is my final
lasting love that I have the urge to perform it again. I’m sure if I do
it I'll sing it differently now.
Paragraphs like these last two don’t belong in a love letter but I
suppose I’m trying to provide you a crash course in getting to know me.
And who else but you can I talk to about such things.
I get frightened only sometimes now, scared I might not finish all of
what I’ve started, worried circumstances might keep us from one final
embrace – one long, last encounter. Then I remember how much memory of
you I squirreled away against such times and that’s enough. Although I
draw from it often there is always plenty.
The afternoon is ending here and the telephone is ringing. Before I
answer it, ‘all that I can do is pray, stay with me, stay with me.’
Me.
RM June 8th, 2001 5:40 PM
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