Dylan Tribute
North Country in the Summer
Fisherman’s paradise
White pines and birches
Ah-Gwah-Ching
Ah-Gwah-Ching State Health Care Facility.
World of Christmas Store
And a Motel 6, beyond that the flickering sun.
What holds this country together makes me wonder…
To hear dialects from a distance
Foreign languages the twang.
Especially in the North Country.
To stand up for each other and take care of each other---
That, in the end is what it comes down to..
Is what Kent meant when he said: “That’s what unity…if there is any unity in this Nation, it’s of this unity that I speak.
169, Rt. 169
north in the North Country
from Hill river up to Grand Rapids, Minnesota
we’re going to Hibbing today
‘ve got the incense burning
I’ve got the radio going.
To distinguish a poet from his birthplace
The motherfed, breastfed images of beauty
Which the poet hammers out in the cities,
Out on the highways,
Hammer down the coasts, into the oceans and across the plains.
Though he had been to Europe and far away lands
Undimmed, his inward view feeds yet upon the maternal images of his youth.
The streams his buddies played in,
The visions he beheld in his innocent and unscathed mind.
Before glamour,
Before fame…
In whose early musical influences
The youthful poet hears on the radio and in jam sessions at Charlie’s Tavern.
Cutting across all of the boundaries
He speaks to the city intellectuals
And his political critiques in the idiot wind.
Speaking to the disenfranchised and the atheists
Who demand a purer, truer, more just government.
Not finding, unable to connect, stranded
We rebel.
Dylan integrates these disparate worlds,
these voices forgotten
Not only the living dead,
But ghosts of electricity.
He speaks to the average Joe in nature poetry,
“If Tomorrow Wasn’t Such a Long Time,”
and sings “Lay, Lady Lay,” in hypnotic trance.
Romance, his love songs: “If Not For You,” “You’re Going to make ME Lonesome When You Go.”
Simple things: every man and woman, trees, grass and sky.
For folk historians his interpretation of Woody Guthrie songs,
“The Grand Coolie Dam.”
“Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie,” one of the greatest oral poems recorded in American history.
Seeking the essential poetic tribute
Looking at the cattails, and the butterflies and the manifold ways
The sun illumines the little birch, fluttering its leaves
And the shadows hanging from the overhanging oak leaves
Falling over onto the highway.
A poet is a unifying voice
Giving voice to an unspoken unity behind the everyday
Even when that unity is hidden, obscured, locked away, denies, questioned,
Thrown in full doubt,
The poet speaks from the heart of the land giving full voice to the word of a nation.
In the voice of the poet we hear all of the dialects, all of the American twang,
The patterns of locutions and crazy speech we call American English.
The gifts the poet brings
Language itself is poetry
But it requires that the poet come forth and shine light
On this language
When the first time you listen and hear, the ear of poetry is born.
Poetry is not something that the poet possesses,
The poet is possessed by poetry
It is not something the people possess,
People are possessed by their language.
Swimming in it
Moving about
Buzzing along
Everything seeping through the radio
All along the ridge to Hibbing
The wayside rests you love so much.
Lakes
Lights
Blue Signs
Trucks
What a day!
Dandelion petals flutter on the breeze
In the heat of summertime
Ice in the cooler.
Like in a Dylan tune: ice when it’s hot and you want to quench your thirst/
Just lift up your glass, and knock back some beverage, iced tea, whatever concoction
May be there in a tribute toast in honor of the great poet
Who deserves all honor
Because he was not afraid to spend it all for the world stage.
He spent it all:
Wife, family, health.
But he is still out there with whomever on the Neverending Tour.
Grand Rapids, The Golden arches, Target,
Every American worth their dalt should make the pilgrimage out to Hibbing.
There’s a Wal-Mart on Pokegama Avenue!
Across the Prairie River, the first signs of Hibbing
University of Minnesota of there in the distance
Smartly bobbed blonde in her little red Skylark
Makes the turn.
When the people stop honoring the poets the nation will fall.
The poets are america’s last hope.
The muchness of it all:
It is all so American---
Wall to wall products, signs, roadstops, radio,
Wild cherry Pepsi ™,
M&M’s™, magazines.
Everything, everywhere.
Whoever would try to stop my pilgrimage speak now.
The pilgrimage: it’s not what you think you know, what you think you’re going to find out, what you think you are going to ask, what you think you will answer.
It is opening up yourself to the revelation of the truth,
Of the moment right now.
This road, this song, this man, this voice.
I am wearing a smile on my face today!
Minnesota,
Every town I pull into feels like the heart of America.
What is America?
Is America in the land?
Is it in the people?
There’s the mighty Northern Burlington.
Rusted red, car after car, tugging through the grey marble.
Each car capped to the brim with wet shale
From the red mining hills, Gill Annex Mine.
“This here is hard working poet’s country,
see the red, barren slopes, the odd scrub tree up top.”
Big trucks whir by
Loads of timber,
Mines steam and wail.
Snowball Lake, a little rest in Dragonfly Summer.
Nashwauk!
“We’ve got a hell of a good time goin’
toastin’ up the air condition a bit,
just cruising out to Hibbing, and
the number one focus is Mr. Dylan, or rather Dr. Dylan.
The Native American is prevalent in this northern country.
The advert jargon, city talk and all that Mickey Mouse.
It gets all heaped up and we call it the American dialect.
And we’re proud of it!…
