Ode to a Song

(Our friend, Jake Dockter, has been kind enough to submit, for your widespread reception, a piece about hearing. Enjoy his actuations.)

"To a song whose title I can't remember

Late night radio, fm dial
down on low end, the 80's
tucked amongst npr, talk radio and public hippie dippie radio
was a song.

Its simple refrain and simple lyrics grabbed me as I almost scanned by
staying away from static, from hard rock, from country.
I needed something simple i needed something clean

The song had already started, I mostly caught the end
but the guitar, the trumpet, the drums
all came slowly, slowly, slowly.
with the window rolled down, crossing that bridge across the river
the still, warm, summer air
it fit.

The station may have been one of those weird random waves coming in from Seattle,
or bouncing off a satellite, or some reflective piece of atmosphere.
My grandfather, living in the mountains of southern California
once talked to a trucker in Texas on their CB radios,
some kind of miracle,
the air carrying voices and music to distant places and distant radios and distant people.

In our collection of family letters,
my great-grandmother was written to by a man on an island off the coast of Alaska.
She was a singer, on the radio, in the 40's,
and one night performed and sang and then went home and went to sleep.
But in that night the waves of her song, the broadcast
kept traveling, out across the pacific,
the lonely waves of ocean pushing her
until she reached a man in a small cabin on a small island
who sat in rapt attention,
and after hearing, had to write a letter.

In the car, on that night, that song came from somewhere
and its simplicity held me, and then faded into the static.
I fiddled with the knobs and buttons and dials
but it was gone.
And i am back to the hardrock, and country and talk radio
which i meant to hear, which is supposed to reach me

I'd rather listen to those stolen sounds
and random, wandering noises
that i was never meant to hear."

-Jake Dockter