Hang out with poets, and you never know what might happen.
They burst out in verse, make sonnet jokes, pick up guitars and percussion shakers, find just the right folk song to turn into a sing-along, toast the elusive muses, allow a tear for the depth of pain – a father lost to glioblastoma, a husband lost to midlife crisis, a love lost to a bottle, a high school sweetheart lost to the pursuit of poetry.
This, of course, is the song circle. Pain leads to the inevitable, which leads to pain again. A new beginning, a new phase, a new hope, a new life, a new inevitable, a new pain.
And so we sing. We write. We love. We toast again.
Though the voices never fully harmonized, the poets sang to you and me last night.
With the simplicity of lyrics and refrain, I added my voice as if I’d crooned it around campfires with a bunch of cowboy poet friends way back, even though I’d never heard it before.
Here’s to you my ramblin’ boy
May all your ramblin’ bring you joy
Here’s to you my ramblin’ boy
May all your ramblin’ bring you joy
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Words and music by Tom Paxton, copyright 1963 Cherry Lane Music.
For a blast from the black-and-white ‘60’s, check out the youtube video with Paxton on the Pete Seeger show, Seeger singing along at the end. See if you don’t end up singing along, too. If you do, thanks for singing along with me.