A Southern Missive

My muse has been active lately. I thought I’d try my hand on a song. The lyrics seem to work, though like everything I write, need editing, but the song has a feel I like. Now must get to work on a melody.

In my new silence of living
I have no regrets,
For the magnet of your love
That still pulls upon me yet.

I’ll hold to my promise
To my words and my verse,
To lose you is hard,
But to hurt you would be worse.

If by chance I should see you,
You won’t see me cry,
I’ll smile and I’ll wave,
But when you’re gone I’ll die.

There’s no need of compensation,
There’s no lines drawn in the sand,
Only soft pleasant memories
Of me once holding your hand.

You’re still my heart’s focus,
Still the love of my life,
Your ghost will walk with me
Until the day that I die.

There’s an ache deep inside me,
My heart’s hollow and sore,
Breaking from the memory
Of what’s not there anymore.

I know it’s not an ending,
But it still feels like death,
Because you’re the best thing
That’s happened to me yet.

We faced love’s complications,
Lived through storms and through guilt,
And even this amputation
Won’t end the love that we’ve built.

The best and worst things happen
When the timing is wrong,
But we’ll live on forever
In the words of my songs.

Yesterday, I saw a stack of blank maps of Africa in my classroom. If you teach English in this culturally illiterate age, you learn that you have to teach other subjects (across the curriculum is the jargon) also in order for the students to truly grasp the literature. So, I make use of history and maps constantly. The blank ones I use for various assignments, usually for the gifted students to map out colonial Africa. Anyway, when I saw these maps, I thought of two books: Heart of Darkness and Out of Africa. I thought some more on this and realized that books become points of reference. I still remember my first reading of both of these books, so they’ve become part of my mind calendar. Books and movies: the two greatest influences on my mind these days. I also remember seeing the 1985 movie version of Out of Africa. That made me think of this quotation, which I so identify with these days.

Movie Quote of the Day: I’ve got this little thing that I’ve learned to do lately. When it gets so bad…and I think I can’t go on…I try to make it worse. –from Out of Africa

There are many other memorable quotes in this movie. You can find the script for Out of Africa here: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/o/out-of-africa-script-transcript.html