(needs some work, but here it is for now…)

It was a bright and clear sunny–sky day
Warmth I’d dreamed of through Winnipeg’s winter
I rolled down the windows of my ’76 Malibu
And cranked up the volume on the cassette deck

Tom was still pretty and wailing on his guitar
Singing something I’d already played the hell out of
The wind whipped my hair across my unlined face
As I headed for Trans Canada number one

Cigarette-smoking fingers drummed on the wheel
Driving west with the morning light on my back
Feelin’ alright though I’d stayed up half the night
At a favourite bar listening to The Pumps

Freedom was calling, hooking its finger my way
The weekend stretched before me long and endless
Highway’s lines vanished up ahead and I savoured
Prairie plains forever framed by the windows

Passing landmarks and towns ringed with gold edges
Knowing roads by heart left my mind to wander
Lit a few more smokes and rewound my favourite tapes
And replayed lonesome refrains singing loudly

Pausing time I danced in some prairie farmland
Atop bales stacked in a yellow field emptied
Fleeting moments of my twenty-something youth
Spent on long-shadowed days since surrendered

I gave a jukebox its life at the old Kent Hotel
A tradition to stop and drink up a Kool One
The weathered sign on the road beckons to travellers still
And music echoes its own kind of freedom

It’s a bright and clear sunny-sky day
Warmth I’ve waited for all this long winter
I peer through my window on the Greyhound bus
And hum a tune that I barely remember

words: © 2014 deb davies thorkelson {bluerock/debrazone}   |   may 9, 2014

images:
#1: Detail from original acrylic painting by me: “Prairie plains forever framed by the windows” from Echoes of Music
#2: The Manitoba highway signs are free images from google. I don’t usually publish photos that I have not taken myself (or are from my family), but it’s a long way from California to Manitoba for a pic of a highway marker.
#3: A very recent photo of the sign for the Kent Hotel, Foxwarren, Manitoba  – photo by my brother, Jim Davies, cruising through town in late April 2014. Used with his permission.
shoulda: I have some great photos of my ’76 Chevy Malibu. It was a pretty car, dark blue with white. I need to dig ’em up, scan them, and post a few…

Here’s to our memories, enhanced always by music…
♥

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