First Spring Day, 1971

I remember the first nice day of Spring, 1971, because I wound up writing an important poem that afternoon. My English teacher (and a life-long friend) Curt Brown sent our English class outside to write in the soft, hypnotic sunshine. "Just sit by yourselves, with no one esle nearby, and write whatever you wish, whatever comes to mind," was Mr. Brown's assignment.

Our school border a Nature Preserve, so there were plenty of wonderful places to isolate ourselves. I chose a grassy spot on the lip of a high slope. I opted for a rhyming poem, feeling the soft wind touching my face, bending and rippling the grass, brushing the hair of another student a distance away, then the early leaves of a giant elm tree on the school grounds. I thought about my friends in Mexico City, where I'd lived until the year before... and thought about this wind eventually, perhaps, touching them, too... connecting us across vast distances.

Ah, gentle wind... please, won’t you stay?

Why must you always blow away?

I’d like to spend some time with you...

Where are you going to?

You rustle leaves, you touch the sky—

You ripple water as you fly

I wish I could. I wish I knew:

Where are you going to?

Have you met others like me

In distant lands across the sea?

Was their skin a different hue?

Where are you going to?

Were they old or were they young?

Did they speak in different tongues?

And did they ask the way I do:

Where are you going to?

As I breathe out my sigh’s the wind

And somewhere someone’s breathing in

Though far apart, we’re joined by you.

Where are you going to?

I love the memory of that day, and saved the poem. In 1986, as I was recording my first non-educational kid's album ("Kengos Bongos") I pulled the poem out and set a tune to it. I love that songs keep the past alive... for songwriters, it's our own past, but for people in general, through folk and pop music, it's our collective past. That's one of the many great powers of music.

#gentlewind