David Riley

Van Morrison fell under the needle like a good true thing. He was one third Sandy Row, one third Southern dive bar and one third innocent of anything more concrete than a catchy hook. Sounded just as map lost as me. Van the Man became a mobile home for me on trains and planes and passenger ships all around the world.

Over the years I’ll have accumulated an accent indistinguishable as Irish Stew. I’ll order a six floor library just to hold my stories. I’ll grow my beard long enough to last the winter. I’ll read the Bible cover to cover in fourteen different languages. I’ll build a house of paperback novels. I’ll put up curtains and draw them firm against the dying of the light. I’ll think about dancing, one last time before my feet form roots and rivers running far into the eternal rocks beneath.