"The Last Thoughts of Jeff Buckley in Memphis" by Don Share

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( September 18, 2019 [The Last Thoughts of Jeff Buckley in Memphis]( [Don Share]( I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender —Jeff Buckley If something happens to me, then you’ll be free! And I want you to be free: how does that Presley Song go? I want to be free, free, free, yeah Free—I want to be free… like a bird in a tree. And here by the river alone, by the Mississippi, There’s one last song I’m gonna wade into. See, I was raised to sing wherever I was in a house And now, it seems, I have no house. How does That Tom Waits song go? Wherever I lay my Head, that’s where I call home. I say I have no house, but that’s really a big lie. I’m renting down here. I can sing in this place, So maybe I’ll buy. That is, if I don’t die First. Why so grim, you ask? There’s joy, I suppose, in my voice somewhere. So they say. I don’t hear it, myself. And that’s because I get myself all hung up in the blue, or weigh Myself down in the freighted churn, heavy currents That I hope to God will carry me to our unchained redeemer, Jesus. My last thought is... that I had no last thought. I’m just singing along. Whole lotta love! But… But… The Hallelujah is what you can’t put into a poem. Now I have no house but the waves (the river has waves). I’ve left no notes: only some sketches for an album Of tunes that was, I guess, intended to save Me from going down, or out, or into the hurling rain— From the pain that I worked so hard to earn. Where it came from, where I come from, doesn’t concern You, but please listen to these wild thoughts I’ve hung On staves, that are fit to garland the graves Nobody thinks to visit, in places I confess I never Went to except in a nightmare, and in the posthumous release Of this song. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2019 by Don Share. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 18, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. ["The Last Thoughts of Jeff Buckley in Memphis" by Don Share.]( About This Poem “I’m from Memphis, where the dangerous rush of the Mississippi River—which resonates with the dangerous rush of American history—was never far from my deepest thoughts. But there’s also a rush of song in people, which constitutes a more salutary and personal kind of force. These things came violently together when the musician Jeff Buckley stepped into the river in Memphis; it’s something you just don’t do, unless you’ve chosen to be carried away. In his tragic death, he was, for me, a kind of Orpheus. Maybe in the end, there’s no single rendition, never quite the right words; but where there’s memory and the echoes that live on in song, there’s hope—and if nothing else, at least hope and song survive.” —Don Share Don Share is editor of Poetry, and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books, including Wishbone (Black Sparrow Press, 2012). He lives in Chicago, Illinois. [more-at-poets]( Poetry by Share [Wishbone]( (Black Sparrow Press, 2012) “Ghosts on the Road” by David Rivard [read-more]( “Pilgrimage” by Natasha Trethewey [read-more]( “On the Mississippi” by Hamlin Garland [read-more]( September Guest Editor: Eduardo C. Corral Thanks to [Eduardo C. Corral](, author of Guillotine, forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2020, who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read a [Q&A with Corral]( about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our [guest editors for the year.]( Your Support Makes Poem-a-Day Possible Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. This free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on the weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038 From Our Sponsors [Advertisement](