As if All Journeys Lead Us Home

Jim LaVilla-Havelin

 October 10, 2021

            “riding on a train

             bound west…”

we were so innocent then

certain the Cuban Missile crisis was

going to be the end of the world –

            schooled in this fear from years

            of ducking and covering –

the only response we knew, was to cram it all

into one song

                                    “and it’s a hard,  it’s a hard

                                                it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,

                                                             it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall”

we didn’t know much about climate change

Hiroshima was a silhouette burned into a wall

and when the hard rain really started falling

            after Lee Harvey Oswald,  Viet Nam,  Kent State

            watched Bob in a downpour

            at the edge of the Cuyahoga, where it empties

            into Lake Erie – the Flats

            surrounded by

            other

            old

            wet hippies

we were so innocent then

but you knew Hattie Carroll’s life matters

and Hurricane Carter’s life matters

            this was so long before everything else that

            you could write

                                                “ I married Isis on the fifth day of…”

                                                            and not set off alarms

                                                                                    across the country

“I dreamed a dream that made me sad”

                        as if sadness, loss, grief,  and broken promises

                        were not a longstanding burden

                        until we could not stand

Roethke stayed up half the night

                        “to see the land I love” in his night journey -

                         the train

but Bob hitched a ride

arrived in New York from way out west in

Minnesota (who could imagine that they would freak out in

                        Minne….)      

                                    freewheelin’ and jaunty

                                                                        even innocent

rolled out Kerouac’s

                                    sacred scroll

             it came to Woody

innocent enough to make me smile and consider

                        even though many of them are dead now

                                                            and we know far too much

                                                            “the first few friends I had”

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of five books of poetry. His work has appeared in anthologies about Bob Dylan, Selena, vultures, policing, and others. Sometimes Bob Dylan’s voice (probably the earliest versions) wings its way into his head, and he hums. Sometimes it’s John Coltrane.