The Hummingbird

John moved a couple of boxes out of the way and reached in behind the clothes and pulled the battered guitar case out of the closet. He took a minute to read the stickers haphazardly stuck to the surface, the slogans and names of bars long closed, music stores, tattoo parlors and bands from the past. He ran his hands over the battered surface, the vinyl ripped and torn and beautiful in its own way. This case paid its dues, protecting the valuable cargo it carried. He opened the case and took a moment to look at the guitar lying inside. A Gibson Hummingbird, introduced to the world in 1960, Gibson’s first square shouldered dreadnaught. She was a beauty, scars and all. He lifted her out of the case and strummed the strings. The guitar seemed to come to life, waking from her slumber like a princess from a fairytale. He tuned the strings and strummed an E chord, listening to the notes vibrate and hum inside the box, his ear against the mahogany, a lump in his throat, his fingertips resting on the bronze wound strings. The old familiar guitar, covered in a layer of patina from the smoke of a thousand cigarettes and the stains of a drunken man seemed to whisper to him. "You can't go back—but this place ain't so bad. Just let me get warm and I can tell you the story all over again." He closed his eyes and began to play, his fingers stiff at first but he could feel the notes beginning to find their way. He could feel the life begin again.

He played on. The story of love and betrayal, life and death. All of the wrongs and rights, the ups and downs, the lonely nights and hungover mornings rushing back to meet him. A cinematic, fantastic dream of hope and delusion and drive. A song of lost hope, lost love, lost money, and lost faith. He could hear the choirs of angels, and the screams of the demons. All of it was there in the music. The music, the life he lived, the life he left behind, and the pieces he wanted to keep alive.

He opened his eyes and looked at the walls of the room. He spoke to the silence. “Man, I missed you.” The guitar, still vibrating against his chest confirming and affirming the motion and the words.

“Come on girl, to quote a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, I think it’s time for me to move along, I do believe.”

He put the old guitar back in her case and kissed his fingers and placed the kiss on the guitar and closed the case. He stood, his knees popping, lifting the case and turning to leave the room. We’ve been gone too long. Way too long. He walked through the bedroom door, leaving the light on. He grabbed his keys hanging by the door and strolled into the future.

“They call me the breeze. I keep rolling down the road. I ain’t got me nobody, I don’t carry me no load.”

©Tony Whitford 1/6/2017

The lyrics from, I Ain’t The One, where written by Ronnie Van Zant

The lyrics from, Call Me The Breeze belong to John J. Cale

Credit where credit is due. And boy is it due.

Life

Its funny how your life becomes the controlling factor in who you are.
I’m not talking about the life within you, your soul or essence, the force of being within you; but rather the life you live every day. The job, the hobbies, the food, the cleaning, the bills, the money or the lack thereof. It has a way of taking over. Then one day you realize there must be more to it. As the lyrics in one of my favorite songs explains, “You run and you run to catch up with the sun that’s sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again.” So you ask yourself, Am I not more than my job and the bills? Am I here - merely to feed the system?
Your life, controlled by credit.
Your life controlled by an overwhelming sense of losing it all.
Your life controlled by money.
Your life controlled by insurance?
Your life controlled by fear.
I shudder to think that’s all there is.
And the fact of the matter is. I believe it isn’t. We are so much more. We are Fathers and Mothers, and Poets and Artists, and Musicians and Chefs, and Writers, and lovers and husbands and wives. We are alive. We live on a big beautiful planet full of wonder and mystery floating in a galaxy of stars. That all by itself is amazing. We are traveling at 108,000 km/h or roughly 67,000 mph which means our planet travels 940 million km during a single orbit around the sun. Mind blown right there. We have numerous opportunities, every day, to learn and create and to tell the people around us how much they mean to us. We have the capacity to love, laugh and fill this world with art and joy.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, maybe we should look at it a different way. Life I mean. Maybe we should try to see each new day as a chance to change it all, our destiny, our perspective, and our world. Teach yourself something new. Google it. Right? You want to know about bees. Then learn about bees. Is space your thing? Art, Music, Food? The world is out there…waiting for you to see it-and learn about it and make it beautiful with your own special stuff. You. Your life. The real you.
The money problems, the insurance, the debt. That is not who and what you are. I fight with it every day. I do not want it to contain me, control me or make me less than I can be. Put your arm around your friends and family and support them. Help them be more. I’m willing to bet they will do the same for you. We all can be more if we stop thinking about the problems and start seeing the solutions. Just a thought…it’s not as easy as it sounds sometimes. But it is what we need, to be more than just - life.
Tony Whitford 10/20/2015

Turn To Stone

Standing quietly, watching over the hill filled with monuments to the dead.
Never pausing to rest.
Never seeking shelter from the rain or cold.
Never hiding his eyes from the pain.
Never turning away from the awful grace of God, the savageness of man, the hate we feel for another.
He waits for us to see, he waits for us all to be - the ones who will hold out their hands, in that single act of kindness that can transform the fury, that will transform the suspicion, that will carry us, one and all, to the promised land.
This land of ours, this land of milk and honey, of mercy and love, of forgiveness.
Will we shelter them?
Will we feed them, educate them, listen...when they speak, hear... what they say?
Or will we turn away, turn to stone, and stand on the hill - filled with monuments to the dead?

Tony Whitford
  6/28/2015

Giants On Parade

When we were young

We watched the palace fall out of the sky

We waited for the dragon

Dripping love to make us high

We ran with gods and drank their wine

We ate the dreams of men

We called upon the hearts of Troy

And we shouted in the wind



In time we learned to twist the vine

Escape through smoke and shield

We slept beneath the clouds of gloom

And turned the broken wheels

The steel we wore spoke to our hearts

We drank the blood of youth

We buried blades in waterfalls

And lied to find the truth



We drove our shining time machines

And flew the dragons dry

We carried love across the sea

And vanished from the sky

The bridges burned in purple smoke

Our horses sawed their reigns

We charged across the fields of hope

And cursed the yellow stain



Our cries of "Death to boring lives"

Rang through our fierce brigade

Our hearts were filled with martyrdom

Our hands affixed to blades

The seeds were sewn, the minds were blown

The Piper dearly paid

The whirlwinds dusting kingdom come

Were giants on parade



The fires of torn and tearing down

Now smolder in the rain

And Silence fills the empty halls

Where music filled the stage

Wild poppies rustle in the wind

Where skin and bone provide

The strength to hold the crumbling walls

The years, the crushing tide



 By Tony Whitford
March 23, 2012

The Words Of Our Fathers

 

 

What will become of

The words of our fathers

Speaking

Through atmospheres of impatience

Through lives unattended

Or unexplored

 

What will become of

The message there repeated

Falling

Through attitudes too sure

Through expectations unmet

Through hands held together

In unexplained loss

And love

 

What will become of

The hope in the whisper

Rocking

In a quiet room

Soft breath on his cheek

The gentle beat of a heart against his

Looking into a future

Uncertain

Unprepared

But willing to believe

 

What will become of

The child of the father

Running

From the words they will not hear

Crashing against the hope

Of the other

The quiet room forgotten

The meaning somehow lost

The words that held no cost

 

 

Tony Whitford   7/15/2014