Home Alone

David Bowie wails a peculiar song
as you lay on the sofa,
remembering eighteen,
and the forty years that have rushed

past, remembering
love lost, an illusion you once
believed in, like magic,
romance believed only by one, remembering

houses that ranged from a tiny two room cabin
far in the woods, to a victorian palace,
all yours, none yours, spaces
and you passed through, a mere caretaker,

leaving your mark for a short time
before they faded like dreams
and became some one else’s
fairy tale.

Bowie’s voice drops low, in an old man’s growl,
and you remember those who love you not,
who would laugh as they dance
on the coffin of your soul, but

you smile, oddly in love
with what you once so happily believed,
the light in their souls, now so sadly dark
and far away.

Jagger joins Bowie in a paean to dance,
madcap and berserk in it’s joy,
Rock’s bad boys loose and randy
on a Saturday night as you lay

alone, remembering the most important thing,
that you are somehow, not alone, never alone,
no matter how it seems to you
or the strangers who peer in your window.

About this Poem

I’ve always been a David Bowie, ever since I was a teenager. Ask me my biggest musical influences and I’d tell you Bach, Sinatra, The Beatles, and David Bowie. For those of you who aren’t Bowie fans, the old odd man of rock released his first album in about a decade this week, and yes, I bought the CD, without hesitation.

Last night I played it, along with several other Bowie albums, listening and watching my life pass before my eyes as I sang along with music old and new. I was alone, but I wasn’t. Even as I remembered times good and bad, I was reminded how I have never been alone, even when I thought I was. God has been with me every broken, stumbling step of this journey.

Tom

PS – The picture is a screen capture of what came up on Yahoo image search when I put in “David Bowie”. I can almost hear him sing as I look at the pictures.

About these Lenten Poems

My friend Cathy Benson is on to something. Instead of doing without for Lent, she is doing MORE with a prayer project that is thoughtful and caring.

Giving up something for Lent is a church tradition, not a biblical command. It was designed to get our minds and hearts right as we approach the holy week and Easter. It’s a good spiritual discipline.

But I think a spiritual discipline of doing something more is also a powerful way to prepare our hearts for Easter. The Methodists, through their “Rethink Church” initiative have come up with a photographic way to do this (see below). I am going to add a poem with each image for the lent season to help prepare myself. Feel free to glom on to the idea, visit the blog and read, or share your thoughts and prayers.