"Girl from the North Country"

Some connections are made in the stars before they ever touch down on Earth.
Some connections are a “Series of Dreams” and will outlast truth and a “Simple Twist of Fate” because that’s how God intends it to be and if you don’t believe, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” because omnipotence works in mysterious ways and star crossed lovers will always be star crossed just ask Vincent or Marilyn or Kurt Cobain if you don’t trust me.

I remember so much and I remember so little, but I definitely remember that night at Miggs when I was blasting Bob Dylan as I cleared the tables out front and you walked by. Everything stopped and I knew something was happening here even if I still don’t know what it is. The fabric of the universe was torn just a little bit apart as Bob offered communion and we accepted the round wafer as the music and the mayhem and his encouraging words washed over us and left us more whole than we had been before the song started.

I need to get these words down while I still can because I must try and reach you no matter how difficult that may prove to be. I have no idea what you’re feeling and I don’t envy what it is you’re facing. I know that you lost your best friend and that just stops me in my tracks because we should never lose our best friends no matter the circumstances. I am trying my best to write this poem because that’s what I do and I know you’re staring into the abyss and I know if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck, but with Jim that was never the case nor was it ever in fact true.

Jim was a troubadour of the highest degree. He was a wordsmith and a comedian and a sportscaster, but never an armchair quarterback. He brandished a letter opener instead of a sword and knew just when to twist the knife and when to pull back and allow the silences to make his points for him. He was a leading man and a character actor all rolled into one Norman Rockwell-Jackson Pollock painting. He made everyone around him feel smarter and want to be a better person and he left his mark but never bruised the orange or left teeth marks in inopportune places. He took clever to a whole other level, but was never a smart aleck and understood what it meant to leave well enough alone and to go your own way before you’ve either worn out your welcome or have too loudly blown your own horn. And I believe he knew more about love than all the songs he relished because he was full of heart and understood better than most what Dylan meant when he wrote and sang “How does it feel?”

Charles Cicirella
7/19/15