GRAND CANYON: BOULDER, COLORADO

The last time I came through Boulder I was eighteen, a draft fugitive and traveling by thumb. Had I known my draft status at the time I might not have enjoyed it so much. I’d just completed my first season of summer theater and linked up with a fellow actor who was returning to his home in York, Pennsylvania, on Chesapeake Bay.

We’d lost a loved one that memorable summer. She was stage-managing our production of Man of La Mancha when she walked out of the theater and was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness. I still remember the smile she wore that fateful day. The charm and love of live she personified filled my soul with a warm and tender feeling that I did not completely understand. She possessed the beauty of innocence. My friend had dated her while I had only dreamed. We both mourned her passing. It was my first encounter with the shadow of death.

My buddy Jay had hitchhiked across country a few times. For some reason he despised the southern route with a passion. Having seen Easy Rider I never asked why. Though the summer was coming to an end and the fall was coming on, we took the northern route across interstate 80 through Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago and Cleveland. Our first night out we were stranded for seventeen hours on the exit ramp for Mustang Ranch just east of Reno. Some fool or sadistic bastard picked us up in Reno and dumped us there. He invited us in but we didn’t have that kind of cash so we waited alongside the narrow two-lane highway until we finally realized that no one was going to pick up a couple of guys outside a whorehouse. We decided to walk. The problem was he wanted to walk back toward Reno and I wanted to go forward. It was something I felt by instinct and retain today: Never turn back. The adventure lies ahead.

We started out walking our separate ways, a sizeable chip on both our shoulders, when he finally relented and caught up to me. Within half an hour a trucker picked us up. In those days that alone was something of a miracle. There was a hierarchy of expectations when it came to getting a ride: Volkswagen busses were top of the mark; big-rig trucks were rock bottom. It was against company policy. In all my days of hitching that was only time a trucker ever offered a ride.

He let us off in Winnemucca where we spent a long while reading the notes of desperation scribbled and scratched on the road sign. We were more fortunate than the scribes. A guy with a camper shell on the back of his pickup asked us if either of us could drive a standard transmission. He was headed for Ohio and wanted us to take the wheel. We told him we could, no problem. He rode a while and then we pulled over so he could climb in the camper and sleep. We got off the interstate and sailed down the highway at an average speed between sixty-five and seventy, sleeping in shifts. I was driving when we were forced to pass up a couple of fellow hitchers in the Cowboy State of Wyoming. We could see their spirits rise as the checked us out. We were brethren spirits but all we could do was shrug and gesture as they waved frantically and threw their signs and bags in the road as we drove on by. It seems they’d been there a while.

Like the stalled travelers on the loneliest road in America, the experience left me weak and pondering. We should have stopped but it wasn’t our place. More than likely we’d have joined them in despair when our sleeping proprietor awoke. Who can tell what might have been? It was a crossroad and we made our choice.

We crossed the Mississippi River at night and made it to Chesapeake Bay the next day. The entire crossing took only two and a half days, including the long wait at Mustang Ranch. I spent a week at Jay’s parents home. He was their only child and they were grateful for his return. I was treated as a valued member of the family. I remember clearly the most prized possession of their home: A framed photograph of Jay’s father with John Wayne, both in navy uniforms, on the mantel of their fireplace. They were working class people with basic values and a wandering son they did not understand. I connected with them and respected their ways though I was only a passing stranger.

It was not my place and they were not my people.

I headed north to New Hampshire where I fell in love with autumn. Colors more beautiful than any I have seen outside the realm of imagining. Hills covered with trees and trees covered with leaves of every color. Colors blending harmoniously in a way that reminded me of the French Impressionists. I spent two weeks communing with nature, staying at the college living quarters of a woman I had known since grade school though we had never shared time outside the classroom. I felt like Thoreau must have felt at Walden. As the northern chill set in, I left with a promise to myself that I would someday return. Twenty-two years later, though I have not kept that promise, I have returned often in my mind and in my heart.

On the return journey I was invited to join a theater company in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the strings that tied me to home were too powerful. I held an invitation to audition at the famed Guthrie Theater in Minnesota but the road was too long and cold. I moved on and fell in love with a place called Boulder where the people were open and kind to wandering strangers and seemed enlightened to young adventurous eyes. I spent only a day and a night there, sleeping in the dormitory lounge at the University of Colorado but I left its mark.

I returned home to Motown, kicking up my heels alongside the road to the amusement of passersby and discovered that I was already a month late in reporting for my physical to be drafted into the military. I had written a radical application for conscientious objector status, believing that it would not be approved in any case because my family was not the church going kind. My oldest brother had already distinguished himself in the family’s eyes by refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. He was a convicted draft resister. I had read a book called 4F and decided my best shot was to starve myself so that I would be under the standard weight requirement. I had done so.

When I reported to the center they instructed us all to hold our clothing in our hands as we were weighed. I could not be sure if that was the usual procedure but it put me just over the limit. It was as if they knew who I was and what I intended. In the infamous bend-over room I heard a doctor comment that I was awfully skinny. Someone replied that I was above the guideline. When it was all over we were assembled in a holding room where we waited until our names were called for a final conference. I was the last to be called though all the others were in alphabetical order. I entered a smaller room and the man in charge called all of his associates into the room. I was clearly being given special attention. I was naïve enough that I did not know why I was being singled out.

“Look at this guy,” the man in charge began. “Does he look like he could make it through basic training?”

“Depends how much he wants it,” another said.

“He doesn’t want it,” said a third.

I nodded in agreement and looked around the room. They seemed to be enjoying this interplay. Finally, the man in charge confides:

“Alright, you may get a 1-A in the mail but don’t worry. You won’t be inducted.”

I don’t know why but I believed him. Maybe they figured I’d be more trouble than I was worth. Maybe they figured I really was a conscientious objector. Maybe they knew that Nixon was about to call off the draft. Or maybe they were just playing with me. I do know that I would not have gone under any circumstances and as it turned out I was never called. In some strange way I almost resented it. I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to join the army of resistance but it was not my destiny. That distinction would belong to my brother John and I will forever honor him for it.

That was my first journey. It was filled with wonders and its many crossroads had the power to change the course of my life. That I made the choices I did has led me to the place I now stand. I have returned to a place of beauty and one that has lived only in my memories for over two decades.

We drive into town, our separate memories preoccupying our minds in silence. Wiz has more recent memories and we follow his lead. We stop at a gas station near the university and I press the clerk about what’s happening in town while Wiz attends to Sally. The clerk knows nothing about golf. She doesn’t know about the Colorado Shakespeare Festival where I once applied for a position. She doesn’t know about jazz clubs. But when I ask about the poetry scene her eyes light up. She tells me where it’s happening and when. She says the Allen Ginsberg is in town, teaching a class at the Institute. Wiz locates the nearest public course through the phone book and our plan takes form. First we will golf in the shadow of the Rockies, then we will explore jazz poetry on the streets of Boulder and finally we will check out the scene at the poetry café the clerk has recommended.

The golf course is striking, more for its surroundings than for its layout. It is the new breed of course, a centerpiece for a housing development. It is long, well contoured and beautifully manicured. The greens are smooth, slick and sloping. We’re paired with an older couple, good and solid people. The man uses an iron off the tee and rarely sends it airborne. We later learn he is recovering from back surgery. His wife is a beginning golfer but she has a better swing than her husband. With a little guidance (hit down to go up) they could both be good golfers. As it is they enjoy the round despite their games.

The Wiz and I are playing our normal games. We are having a little difficulty with the read and the speed of the greens. On the sixth hole, out of the blue, I nail a three wood off the tee and stiff an eight iron to within ten feet of the pin. My putt is true to the center of the cup. I look up with a smile and immediately recall from the expression on Wiz’s face the bargain we struck back in Glenwood Springs. After the next birdie we swallow the worm! Only in this case, we swallow two worms each: Dos Gusanos.

We have placed our mescal samplers in our golf bags in preparation for this occasion. We tee off on the next hole, a three par to an elevated green and linger at the tee to allow our playing partners to move ahead. We are all but certain they would not approve. We whip them out quickly and put them down, mine in one swallow, the Wiz in two. I am amazed at how well I play under the influence of the worm. The world opens before my eyes. Don Juan, howling in the breeze, hovers over my shoulder. Suddenly our partners, unaware of our adventure, are like family to us. On the ninth hole we share stories and confidences and part with a heartfelt well wishing.

Boulder is a magical place. Our spirits are soaring as we head downtown, primed for jazz, laughter, music and poetry. Wiz points us to the square at the beginning of the pedestrian walk where neither cars nor bad tidings are allowed. We find a place to park and walk to the street where the scene is unfolding. There on the corner we come upon a couple of bongo players and a gypsy dancer. Within a sliver of a moment I know her. I have always known her. She is the dream I have always dreamed. She is the love I have always held within my heart. She is the queen of the gypsies. She is the woman I fell in love with a thousand years ago in a house of mystery. She is the woman I followed to Nashville.

I pull out my pen and begin writing, looking up only to take in the inspiration that comes with each breath. Wiz joins the musical feast, charging the dance of the gypsy with fresh muse like the first star of a clear moonless night, like the first scent of evergreen, like the first taste of ocean air, like the first glimpse of Grand Canyon. The enchanted circle grows. The words flow faster than I am able to write them down. I capture and hold them. They are as illusive as a gypsy’s love.

The music fades to silence. The mood is satisfaction. The dance gives way to the dream of glory and yields to waking motion. The players converse as actors do between scenes at rehearsal. They shake hands with Wiz. He has passed the audition. My words finally run dry as if the motion itself carried them and when the motion ceased the words emptied in its wake. I join the player circle on the corner of the square and Wiz introduces me. He tells them I am a poet of the streets and suggests that I join them in revelry. It seems to cause a split.

One of the percussionists is reluctant and skeptical which he communicates with a scowl and a sarcastic wit. He doesn’t want to share the stage. The gypsy dancer has already encroached on their territory and stolen his thunder as gypsies are inclined to do. He has not conceded to welcome Wiz with his magic flute yet already he is being asked to make room for a street poet. It is an art form he does not recognize.

I can only be amused. I have had some difficulty accepting the art of poetry myself. I have no need to recite my words on the streets. I am satisfied to have committed them to paper.

The other man is wiser. He strikes a contrasting chord with a smile that spreads good tidings to match the mood of celebration. He welcomes all artists of the street. He has recognized the enchantment of the moment and answers with a recitation of a poem he has committed to memory. It is a piece by Blake as I recall. The words rise and hang in the air like a lingering melody of strings. It is inviting and yet foreboding. It is the standard by which my words will be judged. I smile and understand. I like his style and manner. I have as yet made no decision: to read or not to read.

The next round of music and dance begins. I imagine myself a surfer waiting to catch a wave. It must be the right wave. Just as each wave requires a different style of surfing, each rhythm calls for its own style of word jazz. I don’t do country or folk, rock and roll or Irish jigs. Give me jazz or space jam.

I wait and listen but mostly I watch the dancer and the dance. Her eyes are mystical and divine forces guide her movement. Finally the spirit moves within and I spot a wave I can ride.

The karmic debt is mounting with each tick of the karmic clock
With each breath of unholy air each thump of collective shock…

The rhythm and the movement accelerates and transitions like the wind before a storm, carrying me like a dream of mystic flight among the clouds of a starlit night.

Speak no more of troubled times and days of mourning
And dawns of no tomorrow

Hear no more the winds of darkness unloading tears of sorrow

Heaven lives upon this earth what more could heaven be?
Hell is a room without doors in heaven we are free

Free to choose the darkness or the light
Free to love or hate and choose the battle we will fight

My love is my heaven here and now

Speak no more of bring me down and suffer me your truth

I love therefore I am the truth and love is my master

The dancer moves to a higher plain and touches me at the core and center of my being, like the hand of a goddess. I am moved beyond words but offer up the only gratitude I have to give: my words, my poetry.

Esmeralda on the Streets of Boulder
Spinning with the core and center of life
Her eyes dancing with fire rage desire
Her soul tempting ecstasy

Forces of an ancient peyote wind howl
Move this precious jewel beyond words
Beyond passion beyond the edge of reason
The body as an instrument of faith finely tuned
To raise the lightning rod that dwells
Within the secret soul of self

Blast me with the fuel or your undaunted devotion pure
And unpolluted by the hand of social righteousness

Fear not the wagging tongues and bulging eyes of those
Who cannot walk the streets with open shirts and hearts

You are the wind the blessed child of mother earth
The chosen of the nameless flock who follow their noses
To the maze of mindless wonder and dumbstruck awe
To settle in the circle of their own waste
Content and comfortably numb

You are the object of their desires
They dream of you and pray to meet you in another life

Dance and let the masses dream
Sweet nectar of life be yours and mine
And ours to embrace

What are words to their inspiration when the inspiration is itself inspired? They linger and hesitate as if awaiting her sacred blessing. They rise like smoke and scatter with the first breeze. They have hit their mark. They have spoken to the moment with honesty and truth. They recall the essence of the oral tradition. This is the method of the troubadour and the street poet, immediate and engaging, inspired by the unfolding of events. What greater tribute to the gift of a gypsy dancer than this?

Alas she speaks. More gratifying than eloquence, more pleasing than poetry, as if awakening from a dream, in an airy distant voice, she solves the moment’s mystery: Wow, that’s beautiful! Sweet satisfaction is mine. Sweet love of innocence is born again. Her simple words have filled my heart with joy. I have paid tribute to her grace and she has embraced my song of praise.

Her name is Rain Forest. From this time forward she will also answer to the name Esmeralda. She asks if she may have my words and stops me as I start to tear the page from my notebook. She borrows my pen and copies them in her own hand. She asks me how I pronounce Esmeralda. I do so and explain it is from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is one of her favorite stories along with Cyrano de Bergerac. She is a romantic and so am I. We are pleased there are still some of us left in this world. We do not speak of ordinary things, our lives and our living. We know enough already. When we shake hands there is an electrical charge that seals our bond forever.

If it is true that our lives are built on prior lives then I have surely known her in another existence. Maybe I was Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe I was the poet suitor never to win the love of Esmeralda. There are far stranger things in this world than our dreams allow. Tonight was her debut on the streets of Boulder. Her legend is born.

She thanks me for the poem and I thank her for the inspiration. She thanks me again in the poetry of dance. This time she dances for me. My eyes are riveted to her untrained body in flowing, writhing, floating and sensual motion. She has tapped an ancient muse. She has transformed her perfect body into universal spirit. When her eyes meet mine there is a pull of energy so strong it renders me helpless. I am grateful to be sitting. Were I standing, her power would surely knock me to the ground, leaving me breathless at her command.

The time comes for her to move on, like a mermaid in an ocean mist, vanishing into the streets of Boulder. She has a return date with the wiser of the bongo players. The other has departed. I wish her well and watch her turn and walk away. She does not look back. It is unlikely we will ever see each other again but her image is burned into my consciousness. The moment is perfect and eternal.

Wiz and I linger, enjoying the company of strangers and basking in the afterglow. They play a little longer. My words are spent for now but my spirit is renewed. We make a clean break and wander down the pedestrian walkway, Wiz playing as we go, polishing his chops on a silver flute.

Everywhere we go he is greeted with smiles and compliments. They offer money, ask him to stay and play, and thank him for a moment of surreal enchantment. The Wiz is in his element. This city loves his chosen instrument and he is a master in the garb of an apprentice. Here the people recognize his gift and applaud his talent.

He speaks of the flute in relation to the cities where he has plied his trade. For all its jazz and mystique, New Orleans does not embrace the sound. Though he can render it mournfully and draw tears from an angel, New Orleans is too dark for such a heavenly voice. It is a muse one would not expect in the company of voodoo queens and vampires. The jazzman flautist would starve in the Big Easy but here he would thrive.

Nashville is a strange town for the wizard of the flute. It is a city of music and musicians of all stripes find their way to its confines. In the taverns and bars some of the best jazz, rock and folk you will ever hear plays through the night but country is where the money is and country rarely embraces the flute.

We stroll down the enchanted boulevard, pausing here and there to breathe in the shops and enclaves of street entertainers. There is a strong presence of jazz, rhythm and blues. Rockers with acoustic guitars stand alone, gathering contributions in open cases. Fiddlers draw a crowd. I make a note: There are no poets on the streets of Boulder, not even here in this sanctuary of free expression. A juggler draws the largest gathering and performs to thunderous applause.

In the land of enchantment the fool is always treasured.

A woman in conservative dress and style approaches Wiz with exuberance before she draws back. Wiz beckons her and she returns. She confides that she is in love with the flute. She is a devoted follower of Ian Anderson who performs under the name of Jethro Tull. Wiz has long sworn off the style he believes is addictive to the point that it excludes all others but now he plays the patented chops that Anderson made famous. The woman is overjoyed and offers money. Wiz refuses and offers a CD with the explanation: Write to the address on the back and I’ll send you one of my own. She thanks him and we move on. His following grows and another soul is made lighter for his passing. The karma of jazz.

We grab a couple of falafels and sit before a Blues Brother trio on break between sets. The bench where we are seated has an overhang that prevents us from seeing the upper halves of their bodies. We speak of music, art, the street scene and finally, the shoes of the three musicians. They are well suited to their style but poorly matched to their feet. We realize at length that they are not prepared to play another set. Their gig is up. With a tip of the hat, we head over to the poetry café.

It is on a corner a couple of blocks from the pedestrian mall on the main drag. It’s a happening joint divided into two sections. The smaller features a plywood stage, sparsely lit, and a crowded audience area jammed with a few dozen cool blue punksters. We scope the punk rock scene and gather that poetry is not on the menu. We walk over to the larger section, at least double in size, where postcards, greeting cards and a cappuccino bar are featured. There are a few empty tables in the front. It strikes as too cool in a very stylish way. I’ve been known to collect a few postcards in tribute to the heroes and heroines of my upbringing. You can tell a lot about a community by the postcards they stock. This one has a fine collection of American Indians: Geronimo, Sarah Winnemucca, an unknown Lakota warrior and a variety of tribal shamans. It also has more traditional figures of American culture: Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol. One features William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at the Democratic National Convention circa 1968.

As we browse the shop a petit woman appears to be stuck at the counter trying to carry a large square metal object out to her car. The opening is barely wide enough to squeeze it through at great peril to her seemingly delicate hands. Always a gentleman and quick on the draw, Wiz instinctively moves to help her. It triggers an immediate and forceful reprimand. Wiz steps back and with mouths agape we watch her struggle onward with her task. At the door she turns back to announce: There’s nothing I hate more than that.

It’s all I can do not to reply: How about serial killers? Instead I look to Wiz with a shrug. He shrugs back, apparently unaffected.

I select a handful of postcards and take them to the counter where a tall woman informs me they do not accept plastic. I pay cash for the cards and a latte on the side. I ask for change for the postage stamp machine and she directs me to the Quick Stop market. I realize that this is not a friendly place. What’s wrong here? Suddenly and without warning we’re being treated like lepers at a costume ball, like California tourists in Oregon, like some sub-species of a lesser god. Are they tourist weary in a tourist shop? They’ll take our money but they won’t say thanks? Come again?

We sit at the corner table in the front of the shop. I choose a magnificent wooden chair carved into the image of a grizzly bear. I generally prefer a less conspicuous perch but the rudeness of the shopkeepers emboldens me. It doesn’t matter. Here I could sit yoga style on the tabletop and no one would acknowledge my presence. I’m scoping the scene, taking it all in when the reality of the place hits me like a jolt of whiskey on a December morn. The taller woman is braless, mother earth style with a strong sexual appeal but she seems purposely detached and aloof. My vantage point allows me to take it all in and I begin to write while Wiz heads outside to create a new scene.

Slick circle of feminist dreams
She practiced too long at being hip before the mirror cracked
Her sixties dress clean lean and hanging from sharpened nipples by a thread

Don’t look she said with a scowl that would freeze a mother’s smile
Cool baby blue back off I can take you before the shock settles
And leave you breathless like a slow dance that grinds and grooves
So long it steals the light from romance

Bend baby bend shake it down and clutch the inner beast
Your soul is mine to rise or bury like an old machine
Rust and fade to dust

Smile baby blue whose eyes were meant to shine
The morning light not ground the midnight high

There is no life but this we swim together and dance the mating cry
There is no view but this we share as we walk a lonely path

Rise to the call of human kindness spare your tortured brand
I see you dancing naked under blue moon sight
In thundering rain beneath heaven star light

I see your perfect being unleashed in dreams of passion
And raw untempered desire

I see your hunger filled in rhapsodic tides
Your soul lost in the great divide

I see your body open like a broken dam
Whitewater crash again and again

I see your love and tender mercy hidden in the root and core
Emerging with Eros' raging fire radiating in sultry light
Awakening in the long lost night

You and I are lovers from a million lives before this hallowed crossing
I greet you with a kiss and praise eternal beauty

Awaken and steal the breath of moonlight
This wine will last forever

In the end I do not understand the divisive attitudes of the oppressed. The feminist left can at times appear as bigoted as the white supremacists of the old south or the rednecks on the south side of Boston or the country clubbers of Pine Mountain. Geography has no hold on bigotry. We are meant to be allies. If I open the door in courtesy open my mind, do not slam it in my face. The crimes of our culture on the individual level are as pebbles to the mountain. This discrimination and division will set back the cause. It is a strange phenomenon. It feeds the religious right who would neither open the door of courtesy nor the door of opportunity. When it all comes down, know who your friends are. It is too easy to alienate. Build the alliance and thrive! In the hour of need pray that we all find a way to forgive without judgment so that we can stand as one against the tide of oppression. Our differences are of little consequence yet the breach of trust, betrayals large and small, will so widen the gap between us that they will appear as vast and unapproachable as Grand Canyon under moonlight. When will we find the way?

I finish my scribe as a wild and writhing dancer appears before me life a vision from the dark side of a liquid dream. The gig is on. I write.

Shake it baby grind and lust the pining light
Jazz be yours in major key and chase us through the night
Snake and groove the heavens to divine the pulsing
Heat of all and ever force of life life life

Jazz be yours and couple with the fire of desire
Tap the cave dwellers and stir them to rejoice
The lava flows in mounting waves of madness
Joy and love of nature’s boundless womb

Jazz be yours and glide on streams of wanton dreams
Down and down again sinking without care
A whirlwind to the depths of ancient core desire
Sweet blue fame of gone and over edge of sane
And pain and Mary Jane in mourning
Make heat and lusty love in waterfalls of time

Jazz be yours embrace it squeeze it
And hold on for dear life

We head out across the pedestrian mall our spirits rising. The Wiz is playing as we move and I am reading verse and prose as the spirit moves me. Wiz discovers a sign that we are on the right path. There beneath the bench where we sat to the blues trio that never played are a pair of shiny patent leather shoes. They must have been left behind by one of the three musicians. They must have heard our musings and left them as an offering in lieu of their set. It seems mystical as the Wiz tries them on: a perfect fit.

We resume our stroll toward Sally with an open mind. A university student waves a five spot and asks Wiz to play before their table outside a beer joint. Wiz refuses the money but plays for his and their entertainment. We end up inside where we are engaged in conversation by another student who informs us that Boulder is a doomed city. He explains that it lies on a flood plain. It is only a matter of time before it is swept away.

I imagine being a Californian escaping the great earthquake, a Floridian or Carolinian escaping a hurricane or an inhabitant of tornado alley escaping the ruins only to be swept away on the flood plain of Colorado. Go where your bliss informs you and take your chances. There is no escape. There is no sanctuary.

He is a student of literature but he doesn’t write. He doesn’t believe he has the talent. His favorite writer is Charles Dickens and his favorite novel A Tale of Two Cities. His outward appearance is that of a typical football and Friday night college student like the elitists of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Inwardly he has world of though to offer a planet in desperate need but he lacks the confidence to deliver his message. I want to tell that of course he can write. If he can speak he can write. If he can think he can write. But no one on earth can deliver the lesson that he must learn for himself.

It is near midnight and we are content with our Boulder experience. It has renewed a bond and a sense of security. It is a place that welcomes us. We are grateful but we decide to move on. We get to within a block of Sally when a corner of activity inspires Wiz to a last improvisational performance. The enchanting sound attracts a raggedy man with wild eyes and a guitar who praises him to the heavens. He asks if he may play a few riffs on Wiz’s magnificent instrument. Wiz consents and the raggedy man plays. He asks Wiz to join him for a few songs down the road at the square. We are back to where we began. They set up a plastic bubble, the waiting station for public transportation, and commence to play. It turns out the man is a gifted Irish Indian Mexican flamenco guitarist looking to make a comeback on the local scene. He had started an Irish folk group that ran its course and broke apart despite its success. He’ looking to start again and wants Wiz to join him.

My muse is still burning and I let the music take me where it will. Writing without thought or car is a rare and special blessing. Ride it when it come and let it flow. The moment will not last forever.

City of a thousand wet dreams and visions of tomorrow
Police siren at the crack of midnight Don Juan on guitar
Soul of the magic flute scorching the Boulder skyline
City of holy sounds wise prophets and gypsy dancers
City that moves in harmony to the beat of higher minds
That cracks the upper maze and grounds angels in mid flight

Scream the stream of consciousness coyote on the run
Black crow perched on sacred ground
Thunderbird on native winds transcending the heights
Touching my secret soul with the wind of timeless sage

The music like the flight of butterflies emerges from the air
Showers me with blessings letting go without care

The rare and precious jewels for which the mind of man is meant
Muses of the gods the goddess of content

Lore of the ancient tribe of troubadours
Treatise of the philosophic mind
Rhyme of the first poet
Breath of the first wind

Beauty is in the being rising from the void
Feeding the depths of spirit nourishing harmonics
Inspiring the core wisdom of the universal soul:
We are one with all and all is one within

It seems hours have passed in minutes. The wild man has made his case for the Wiz to stay and join him in his venture. It is a crossroad and he is tempted but in the end like me he cannot shake the journey’s chosen end. We will return to Nashville. He offers a CD and asks the man to write him at the Alabama address. His message is clear: Get it together and Wiz may join him. We shake hands and I have the sense that their reunion will never happen. He needs more than a musician. He needs the man that Wiz is. It is a strangely solemn parting.

Our minds are full with thoughts and memories of all we have experienced on the journey as we drive down the highway heading east to Kansas City. No more than a few miles out of town Wiz wants to turn back. The ghost of Mustang, Nevada clouds my mind. I was prepared to stay the night. I even suggested it. Now it is too late. Don’t turn back. You can never go back. What more did we have to learn? How could we better the experience we have already enjoyed? It is time to let go. We have departed for a reason. To turn back now would fly in the face of all the journey means. Believe in the path and go forth.

Wiz finally concedes. With the ghost of regret riding with us now, we drive on. Boulder has been all we could anticipate and more. It is a place that calls us back and I have no doubt that each of us in time will return.

If ever I am stranded by the roadside abandoned
Here will I return to greet the setting of the sun

If ever I am fallen like October leaves of brown
Here will I be planted upon this sacred ground

And when the chill wind suffers me to groan
Here will I return to find paradise alone

For I will wander distant lands and glory at the sights
But never will I leave behind the wonder of this night