Last Song
Mother! Where have you been? Your
children are drinking beer and playing
the piano. Every single thing you ever
owned has long ago disappeared. We’re
not even sure when exactly you were born
or what ship you came here on.
Sweet hope, show me the way
out of this mess. I keep talking to people
who can’t remember who they are.
And then there’s this feeling of every
thing being just out of reach or not quite
audible. I couldn’t remember John Prine’s
name this morning on the way to the Safeway
listening to him in the car singing
“Remember Me When the Candlelights
Are Gleaming” with Kathy Mattea.
His last song, “I Remember Everything”—
so frail and beautiful, it moves you to tears.
I remember now where
all of you have gone.
Floating in the air
from song to song.
—Terence Winch
from Glimpse (#56, Spring 2023)
Drawing of Terence Winch by Joe Giordano in Baltimore, 20 Sept 2023.