The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
Composition and Experience
By Larry L. Dill
“A composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books that have influenced him, the pictures he loves. It should be the product of the sum total of a composer’s experiences.”
--from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s writings found in the liner notes of a 1958 Funk and Wagnalls recording of his Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Opus 18.
We wrote and we wrote and we wrote
and we were never able to write our way out of the sixties.
We were driving past a controversial new shopping center in Austin
a few years ago, my family all together in the car,
and my youngest daughter said she had been a part of a movement
to stop the shopping center from being developed
and I said I was proud to hear that her generation was
finally getting involved in politics
and she said that it was my generation that had
screwed everything up in the first place. And we all laughed.
But she was right.
We did fail our children.
Even Barack Obama's mother
would no doubt agree. God bless her soul.
I can't even save my own brother.
I can't save myself.
What the hell can I do?
What can I possibly do?
I met a man in the grocery store on a Sunday night here a few days before Christmas.
We were both looking at the rye bread section.
Only "seedless" seemed to be on the shelf. It was, after all, a Sunday night.
We kept standing there staring at the the place where the
"seeded" rye should have been. The best stuff. The richest.
"Were you in the army?" he asked me.
Somewhat surprised and then realizing that I had on
an old army field jacket I said, "As a matter of fact I was."
"Vietnam?" he asked. "I was in Vietnam."
"No," I said. "I was in Korea. Same time," I said. "It was quiet there then."
"Well, anyway, thank you for your service," he said, as we each settled
for the "seedless" rye.
"Same to you," I said as I slipped away.
I'd found the old field jacket in a trunk this fall and had begun to wear it around.
Not so much as a badge of honor (to which I have no claim).
But more because it makes me feel young again.
Not so much a young soldier as just young.
My parents had been so proud that I was apparently
willing to die for my country rather than go to Canada
that they'd driven 600 miles from San Antonio
to El Paso to see me graduate from basic training.
My brother can't even claim to be a homeless veteran.
(like the ones you see with the cardboard signs)
It's a shame.
He's tall. Still ruggedly handsome. And Lord knows he has struggled.
It's a shame that in our world
You have to die in military combat to be a hero.
So we're slipping away, my brother and I,
into fields of dreams and of oblivion.
We write to each other the old fashioned way.
He can't afford to drink. I can't afford not to.
What would my therapist say...if I had one?
What would Jesus say?
Occasionally I check Craig's List in Austin and Albuquerque, Dublin
and Paris, New York, London and Marseilles.
No one wants an old man on his doorstep anyway.
Mistral's memory is blowing in the wind.
On the eve of New Years Eve I listened
to an old vinyl recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2
And thought of his depression and how he turned it into music.
Here in Appalachia it's always like that.
Isolation and loneliness.
I have Deborah here for sustenance and conversation.
The dog and the cat for company.
The grocery store is my society.
One day you meet an old soldier.
The next day a pretty girl.
Whoever your god is, he always strikes a chord, creating a balance
between who you are and who you want to be.
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copyright 2009 by Larry L. Dill