A Paean to Me and John Wilson

Oh brother, where art thou now?

Do you recall the impromptu days
Of trolling away from our church
Laughing on highways both trodden and lost?
The road unending would take us to friends
In other states, other lands, other third worlds.

Remember the wrong side of the road through Britainia?
And the edge of our own continent?
Places where one day we would return to be in each other's weddings
Only to go separate ways down the same path?

There were Pyramids and Stonehenge and Orleans on All Hallows Eve
And a desert where I refused to make you a sandwich.
And there was the Grand Canyon hidden in fog and snow
Cows sliding on ice in the divider
Another night in your car
And no fish.

Today it is the jokes that are in
But then it was a parade we were in
Uninvited, but welcomed with margaritas all the same.
The Goths with their matted hair and make-up
And you in your red birth-wig
Where you claimed to suddenly fit in.

And weren't we both in love with the same blonde girl
Who lived across town?
Who now lives across the country
In some other world
Down some other road
That resembles the one we're on now?
You with your children and I with mine
Still friends, despite that sandwich
And perhaps with more in common than ever.

I have it all on tape and film, nearly unrecognizable
Dusty video and negatives of us
Where I need some combination of technology old and new
To revive for a moment
That time where the future looked nothing like it does now.

Except that you are my friend in both futures.


For John Wilson, 9/6/07 - Today's his birthday