Evensong V (25 December 2023)

In my dream she sends me Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell, the Vince Mendoza arrangement from 2000. I know I’m dream-remembering the conversation I listened to about music arrangements that featured the maturation of this song. The musicologists cited the atmospheric sensibility of this latest arrangement and then played it in its entirety. I cried from Queens to Harlem.

From Harlem to the West Village.

I cried from New York City to D.C. to Upperville to Charlottesville to Chattanooga to Bristol to Auburn to New Orleans.

Savannah, Atlanta, Wilmington.

To Galveston to Austin to Carlsbad to Truth or Consequences to Phoenix to Los Angeles to San Francisco to Reno to Idaho Falls to Twin Falls to Cody to Rapid City to Sioux City to Tomah to Chicago to Detroit to Pittsburgh, back to New York.

In my dream she tells me this song reminds her of when she was alive. I know I’m dream-remembering and dream-longing for you. In my dream I was able to unlock your iphone and see the photos in your carousel. There were photos of me that you took that I’ve never seen before; photos of you seeing me. In my dream you played this song back to me from deep in my mind. You showed me pictures of myself, how you saw me in your lifetime. Grief makes me invisible to myself. I am a ghost now, too. My own reflection gives me a start. I don’t recognize myself.

A pixellated yule log burns on a screen in the living room. My dog sleeps on the floor. Early this morning we walked by Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church. On 72nd Road a side door opened, surprising us with a full swell of the organ billowing out like the unfurling of a great sail of sound. Startled, the dog and I watched a woman step out and push the door closed behind her, silencing the exuberant music. We stood on the sidewalk and stared as she coughed riotously into the sky.

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