Deep Purple Dreams

your death is still an abstraction
in my mind

I saw the online obituary
last night
a picture of you so gleeful
with one of your hat creations atop  your head

I said to myself, "Why that is Sue!"
and then I re-remembered that the photograph
accompanied your obituary

I know nothing.
nothing, nothing, nothing
and I have known I know nothing for many years now

but a primal place inside of me
knows that where you are is good
and soft and kind and pretty

I KNOW that.
and this knowledge is visceral not cerebral
I'm going with visceral more and more these days

.............................................................

stuff was backward Sunday afternoon
my bike was that is

at 2:16  I got on my new green bike
and the seat felt too high
and when I tried to pedal, it was too hard
my knees just up and hit the handlebars


I lay the bike on the front lawn
and as I did I remembered how I used to do that all the time
when i was a kid- back in the day when a girl
could leave her bike lying in the front yard
with no worry that someone  might take it

I went inside and Dan comes out, looks at the bike
and says, "Lucy, you have the wheel all turned around."

and gosh, I did
and then I got on the bike and I pedaled west
to meet my friend for a walk
relieved I was as I pedaled toward my friend's house

maybe an hour later I was back on the bike
the short walk with my friend  over
and my phone buzzed in the pocket of my  shorts

I did not answer it since I was just a block from home
but I knew what the call was
somewhere between my backward bike problem
and my walk underneath the glorious February sky
you left

all that morning I had been playing
top Billboards from 1963
and for the past few days since you died
these words keep coming across my mind

sure is a pretty song, isn't it?
it was one of those that hung in the back row of my memory
like a comfy sweater I had long forgotten
 sure am glad I found it again



HERE  are the lyrics if you want to sing along. Singing always makes me feel good. 



NINO TEMPO AND APRIL STEVENS

"Deep Purple"

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the night
In the mist of a memory you wander on back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh

In the still of the night once again I hold you tight
Though you're gone, your love lives on when moonlight beams
And as long as my heart will beat, sweet lover we'll always meet
Here in my deep purple dreams
Here in my deep purple dreams

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the night
In the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh

In the still of the night once again I hold you tight
Though you're gone, your love lives on when moonlight beams
And as long as my heart will beat, sweet lover we'll always meet
Here in my deep purple dreams
And as long as my heart will beat, sweet lover we'll always meet
Here in my deep purple dreams