You're the poetry, man

While my mother's health was slip-sliding away last April 26, 2011, I orchestrated a pancake party because that's what my mother requested. Eighty-eight pancakes, no candles. Three of us made pancakes at different houses, no one knowing who was making what number, which ended up being over 100. Platters of real bacon, sausages, fruit, pitchers of milk, pots of coffee and tea. Family.

While my mother was holding onto life, the talented musician, singer, and songwriter Phoebe Snow let go of life in a hospital in Edison, New Jersey. The details of her sixty years are in her lyrics, in her obituaries, and on Wikipedia. Facts. Quotes. Surely not the whole story, the essence of who she was, why she made certain choices.

But she did have to go, death had called her name. Perhaps it whispered her stage name, chosen because of a particular passenger train from the Erie Lackawanna line, the same train that runs through my life. Believe me, if you've ever sat counting train cars or been reassured by the regularity of the whistle and rumble, trains seep into your blood, your bones, your hopes and dreams.

lyrics from Poetry Man 1974

I included external links to Tom Waits' Down There by the Train, written by him for Johnny Cash, sung by each man because both versions are excellent, in addition to Poetry Man by Phoebe Snow. Relax and enjoy for 15 minutes.