Recessional

My friend Malcolm has written a song that so perfectly distills sorrow, regret, disillusionment, and resolution into two simple verses, I am, simply, blown away. It's still a work in progress, and not fully fleshed out by any means, but I can hear its potential, and I have this driving hunger to work on it, myself.

Mal's voice soars over the accompaniment, a lone bird flying above the clouds beneath, high and beautiful, disappearing into the eye of the sun.

It hurts to look, but the song will not allow me to turn away.

I have a great need to study this one, take it deep within, and work with it.

He has used a chord organ for the accompaniment, but I am hearing it in my mind's ear with a more full-bodied accordion sound, the chords mounting and ebbing like an ocean tide.

I have an accordion, and I have the chord progression and the lyrics. This may be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, musically speaking, but I have this burning desire to at least attempt to achieve the impossible: to help that which is already perfect surpass its own perfection.

I have not played the accordion in years, and I wasn't very good at it when I did play. It was just another musical toy that captured my fancy for a time, but I lost patience with it when I hit the learning curve. How I despise learning curves! They stand in the way of my doing immediately whatever impossible thing I'm envisioning.

I don't care if I never play anything else on my accordion, but now, next time anyone asks why I bought the darn thing in the first place, I can give a good answer.

"Well," I would say, "I didn't know at the time, but I bought it so I could play my friend's song."

Yup. That's why. I'm convinced.

Off to practice for a bit, because the learning curve is still there, despite my dreams and visions...