Reflection

I've tried to remember this particular Bruce Springsteen song that I heard about thirty years ago when I lived at the top of the stairs of a little brown shingled house in Chapel Hill. I've tried to remember it because of the way it made me feel that day when one of my room-mates or maybe even I put it on the stereo in our room and cranked up the volume. I think it started in that mournful way Bruce starts many of his songs and then picked up in that joyful way. I wasn't a big Bruce fan in college -- preferred rhythm and blues, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan. But that feeling when I heard that song, those lyrics, Bruce's voice -- that's really what I guess I'm trying to remember. How music slithers into the ear, the brain and breaks out of the body. Back in those days we couldn't look things up, so for years afterward when I thought about that song, god, what was it? I guess I was seeking the feeling I had when I heard it. I thought about the song and the feeling this morning in the dark as I lay in bed and listened to the rain falling finally, its thin patter on the metal awning over the back door. The word conjure. The word soothe. The memory of a smaller, smoother body now grown rounder and soft. Longing.