I dug out this CD and listened to it this afternoon, and could not believe how appropriate it was for so many people here...
Hejira
-- Joni Mitchell
I'm traveling in some vehicle,
I'm sitting in some café;
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away.
There's comfort in melancholy
When there's no need to explain;
It's just as natural as the weather
In this moody sky today...
In our possessive coupling
So much could not be expressed;
So now I am returning to myself
These things that you and I suppressed.
I see something of myself in everyone
Just at this moment of the world --
As snow gathers like bolts of lace
Waltzing on a ballroom girl...
You know it never has been easy,
Whether you do or you do not resign;
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line.
Now here's a man and a woman sitting on a rock;
They're either going to thaw out or freeze --
Listen...
Strains of Benny Goodman
Coming thru the snow and the pinewood trees.
I'm porous with travel fever,
But you know I'm so glad to be on my own;
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones ...
I know no one's going to show me everything,
We all come and go unknown
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone.
Well, I looked at the granite markers,
Those tribute to finality - to eternity -
And then I looked at myself here,
Chicken scratching for my immortality.
In the church they light the candles,
And the wax rolls down like tears ...
There is the hope and the hopelessness
I've witnessed -- thirty years.
We're only particles of change, I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun,
But how can I have that point of view
When I'm always bound and tied to someone?
White flags of winter chimneys
Waving truce against the moon,
In the mirrors of a modern bank,
From the window of a hotel room...
I'm traveling in some vehicle,
I'm sitting in some café;
A defector from the petty wars
Until love sucks me back that way.
