There’s a room full of records that takes us both back

to a place in the shadows that both of us cast back over our

shoulders and into the past before my needle settled into

your groove, your music, back before your squeeze box

met my hot licks and my coffee warmed your water.

Back to vinyl visions and LP dreams spinning ‘round

and ‘round about until the music became our own sound

tracking each step, each decision and indecision, every

move we made, alone together. Boxes of 33 1⁄3 discs

lifted like sacramental wafers unbroken, but occasionally

scratched, for you and me. Our playlists were whatever

was on side A or side B, one or two (or 3 or 4 on the white

album, 5 or 6 on all things must pass). The song order was

as important as the words themselves. The not-so-silent

scratch and hiss between cuts were tunes in themselves,

distinguishing characteristics (dimples and moles) that

set each LP apart like ambient light that brings everything

into focus. And every time a certain song rises from the

grooves we drift back to a crystal ship, a dance in the

moonlight, some bell-bottom blues. And each spin takes

us deeper towards the center of our tracks together, and

every turn becomes a return back to rest the arm

at the beginning...ready to start all over again.

And today my arms rest beneath you after we spin through

an anthology of tunes, grooves and deep cuts that have

brought us together,

my coffee, your water,

my Beatles, your Stones;

a soundtrack for

the ages, a soundtrack

for thirty-seven years.

27 May 2015