Dear Bob Dylan

Entries from September 2007

Dear Bob Dylan,

September 11, 2007 · 1 Comment

It’s raining sunlight and I am in the middle of waiting for my daughter to arrive home from school. I was reading a book of poetry by a prominent poet and many if not most of his lines made me think of you. So much so that I wished I could show you by leaning across a table, turning the page toward you and pointing with my finger.

I would say, read this one here. And you would. Perhaps you’d agree that it was good or that something in it spoke to you. Sometimes just the tone of a poem is enough. Oftentimes for me, it is the very words, the absolute music that thrusts through each line.

I love endings especially. I think the end can tell just how truly humble and honest a poet is. How many bones he willingly exposed, how many teeth he bared, how much of his great heart bled onto the page.

I love as well when a poem makes me ask: what next? And, where do we go from here?

I like that about your songs too. Though I often listen attentively while they’re playing, I listen in hindsight too when the music is no longer playing. When I’m alone in a room like I am now with no sound but the jostle of this keypad and my breathing.

However inadequate my memory is or how varied I might remember a line you sung, I have always believed in what you have to say. Or maybe it’s that I believe in how you say it.

Categories: Lisa Zaran · bob dylan · epistles · letters · poetry

Dear Bob Dylan,

September 7, 2007 · 2 Comments

Late Thursday in Phoenix. The sun pivots west, the horizon like soft cashmere. All week I’ve driven about from one end of town to the other, from this place to that place. Into the city’s chaos and back out again. So many things have happened since my last letter. Things that wake me from sleep in the middle of the night to find fresh tears on my cheeks.

I won’t be coming to Austin. I’m down about it. There are no words. But, everything has its destiny, even the stars, those that wander and those that snuff their lights out.

Life, as they say, is full of change. And change is good.

I am paying attention to your Fall tour dates. I noticed Indiana on the list again. I’m tempted. Of course, your music is with me everyday across this city. From your earliest Motorpsycho Nightmare to your latest Beyond the Horizon.

I look forward to October and all your new releases, restrung and rearranged.

all my love.

Categories: Lisa Zaran · bob dylan · epistles · letters · poetry