WORD & MUSIC

Youth and Age – “Never Worry About Your Heart Until It Stops Beating”

Here is a poem by E.B. White, in which he frames the profound difference between the mysteries of youth and the virtually impossible cross currents that old folks must swim through. Namely, we who are gaining in age are in some way neither here nor there, he says (“the going and not going”), a state […]

Winter Dawn

In this remarkable piece called “Winter Dawn,” Tu Fu captures a moment of flashing epiphany with language, so simple, that speaks from another plain and another time, decades earlier, about the swift flood of life rushing by — as John Prine wrote, “like a broken-down dam.”

Prostate Blues

A humorous, good-natured song on the woes many older men suffer because of an enlarged prostate gland.

“When Compasses Grow Old ” & “Runaway Train”

When compasses grow old, And can no longer be certain, About precisely where north is

“As We Grow Older” & “The Job of Memory”

If you forget my name, I will become a window, Facing the sea