...to sit by a place like this and listen to the water run? Balm for the soul.

Good night, dear hearts.

Shakespeare was inspired by his Dark Lady (most likely the lovely Italian musician Emilia Bassano); Keats by his next door neighbor, Fanny Brawne; Lord Byron (with, I fear, little affection on either side) by his wife, Annabella Milbanke; and Leigh Hunt by a generic Jenny, to poetic fancy. Now we can add Fairweather Lewis to that group of ladies. I have been honored by the vagabond poet DT Oldman with a poem dedicated to me.

DT and I first were acquainted on a small messageboard operated by a well-known cable news personality's staff, although I was using another name then. DT's travels, reminiscent of those of the French poet Francois Villon (or for that matter the Genoese adventurer Marco Polo), have been the inspiration for many of his works. He is in the process, although regrettably still caught in the toils of the Texas prison system, of arranging for the publication of his poetry and memoirs, of which poems to a lady named Annie Mollie and to yours truly form some part. Both poems are masterful blends of humor and pathos.

I am honored, my friends, because, although I have in my somewhat surreal life written many a poem FOR someone, no one has ever written one FOR ME.

Do pay a visit over to DT's current outlet:

http://gnostix1.blogstream.com

And on that poetic note, fair thee well.

This is how Lassie would come home if she were a guitar:

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/after-46-years-country-singer-george/n20080604192209990003

An acoustic Martin 000 is being returned to the immortal George Jones some forty-six years after it was stolen at a concert in Texas.

The guitar, nicknamed "White Lightnin'" after Possum's 1959 hit, has been in the possession of a man who bought it for ten dollars (not knowing it was stolen) for most of the succeeding years. He has spent many of those years trying to get in touch with Jones so he could return the guitar, and finally, with the help of a DJ who's a longtime friend of Jones, will do so at a concert in Bossier City, Louisiana, on June 14th.

My brother had something of the same experience awhile back; a guitar stolen from his house during a burglary turned up in a local pawnshop more than a decade later and he was able to get it back.

For the sake of poetic justice, I could wish that the guitar would be returned to Possum in the city where it was stolen so long ago--Fort Worth--but hey, can't have everything.

George Jones is getting an old friend back, and country music is getting a piece of its history returned. Don't get much better than that.

And on that sentimental note, fair thee well.

Over at that messageboard where I contribute a little hillbilly political commentary and a lot of BS, we liveblogged the Montana and South Dakota primary coverage last night. I have to admit that I was momentarily distracted at the beginning (we didn't start blogging until 8 PM) by Keith Olbermann wearing an exceptionally ugly and disheartening purple tie, but once we got started we actually blogged more about Montana landscapes and etc. than about anything to do with the primaries.

One of my monikers, bestowed on me some time ago by my friend and partner in anarchy Moonstone, is "music maven" and this AM, after a night's sleep and some meditation on the subject, I contributed some thoughts about songs that mention South Dakota and Montana. For reasons of brevity (I tend to be afflicted with diarrhea of the keyboard) I'll confine myself to these observations about three songs.

Moonstone posted a picture of a Montana landscape that prompted another blogger to ask if there is a song about "blue Montana skies." Moon did most of the research regarding this topic, coming up with a Gene Autry song, "'Neath the Blue Montana Skies," from a 1939 movie; unfortunately, neither of us could find the original Gene Autry lyrics. I came up with what I hope is a reasonable compromise: a song of the same title and apparently from a Riders in the Sky tribute album to Gene Autry.

With two other songs I was on firmer ground. As a longtime Emmylou Harris fan, I knew that her 1985 album THE BALLAD OF SALLY ROSE opens with a title song about Sally Rose's upbringing in "the Black Hills of Dakota" and goes on to describe how she left her home on a reservation to seek fame as a singer:

So she left Rapid City in the blue moonlight hour
with her eye on the highway and her foot on the floor. . .

adios, South Dakota, adios, Sally Rose. . .

And then there is "Montana Cowgirl." I first heard this on an album from the 1980s by bluegrass singer Delia Bell, on her major label debut. The album was produced by Miss Emmylou, who also sang harmony on most of the tracks. Simply titled DELIA BELL, this album is on my personal list of the most perfect albums ever recorded; at the time of its release, thanks to Warner Bros.' refusal to promote it as it should have been, it sank like a rock and is no longer available.

Emmylou recorded "Montana Cowgirl" on her 1992 CD AT THE RYMAN with her all acoustic band The Nash Ramblers. It is indeed bluegrass at its best: in fact, one could argue it's the progenitor of the rock "unplugged" fad of the 1990s, proof positive you can rock without electric instruments.

Proof positive, also, that if you're interested in politically oriented music, I'm the wrong person to talk to.

And on that musically and politically incompatible note, fair thee well.

Yucca filamentosa--aka New Zealand yucca--a member of the agave family. Grows in the "hot dry" parts of the US which generally refers to the desert Southwest, but we have them here in the humid Southeast too. Yucca filamentosa flowers look like waxy bells. We have three in the yard. Yesterday Blackadder was in a playful mood, so he hunkered down behind one and with a war whoop "pounced" on me as I came back up the driveway from the mailbox. They make good hiding places for him, as they have broad flat and quite extensive foliage.

Later, dears. Fair thee well.