The Holy Ruins of Hotel California

 

By the rivers of Saskatchewan,
there we sat down, and wept, not like Babylon,
not like Jeremiah, not like the weeping horses of Merlin,
just us grassland sods, soiled saints, disappointed hippies, now
scattered, like Molson stubbies along prairie highway ditches.

Once, by the bonfires in bush clearings, we danced,
doors of the Dodge thrown open
to the sacred tracks of Dylan, Zeppelin,
waves of longing in the summer grass,
reaching into dawn’s amber fog,
for something other
than the world we’d seen.

Gone, now, our free-love anarchy,
gone, our lysergic-tea theology,
our backseat Chevy liturgies,
gone, our Woodstock ecumenism
with its yowling melodramas,
owl-courts, and Pilsner decrees.

And now, still, despite the cold colitas,
the fallen mission bell,
despite the ghosts of echoes
down crumbling corridors,
those yearnings return,
livelier, wiser,
shimmering like shoots after a spring rain,
to reach up through the ruins
of what we were
and what we seem,
for what we truly are.

 

12 Comments

  1. You describe the ephemeral and essential with so much beauty Stephen

    A privilege to read your pitch perfect ruminations.

  2. Those were all expressions of deep longings, though we didn’t really know what they were for, did we? I’ve so often wondered what happened to the collective “us” that later sold out to institutionalism, to commercialism, to greed and the lust for power. What happened to the dreams to be different than those who had gone before? Maybe it can take a lifetime to get to know, and gladly own, one’s self. Thanks, Stephen. I’ll keep my eyes open for the shoots 🙂

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