August 1983…

Two little girls on tiptoes, freshly washed and pajama’d, Ohio summer night, wet hair, teddy bears tucked under chins
Craning, giraffing our necks through the open bedroom window to catch the music floating by in waves like an aurora

Fireflies blinking golden- green, dancing with us to the voice drifting overland from the open-air concert a few miles away, around the trees, across the green lawn and into this old house

There is a young cowboy, who lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change

Mama standing by making sure we don’t lean out too far 
Wishing we had butterfly nets to save all the notes in mason jars
“Mama, can you hear it?!”, I glow, because it’s magic
It’s just for us
I know it’s just for us

And as the moon rises, he sits by his fire
Thinkin’ about women and glasses of beer
Closing his eyes as the doggies retire
He sings out a song which is soft, but it’s clear
As if maybe someone could hear

I remember our smiles as we sang along, kid voices raised with conviction, pretending to understand the lyrics, waltzing a memory to hold onto forever.
Little sister yawns, lids getting heavy,
after all, after-dark in August is up-too-late for little girls.
But, mama twinkles, bedtimes be damned
We can always stay up for magic.

Now, the first of December was covered with snow
So was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Don’t the Berkshires seem dreamlike on account of that frostin’
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go  

Magic in what must have been a fraught day for her

Back in the bedroom she grew up in
Back in the home she couldn’t wait to leave at 18
A home that lost a young mother to cancer
A home with a father who hit and humiliated
Gritting through another stingy, stinging dinner at his table,
but there were grandchildren now

There’s a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me


I wonder if she knows how happy she made us that night, years before any storms hit our own family,
wonder if she knows how close I hold this, still

I wonder if she felt the years slipping away for a moment, her own little girls singing summer sweetness back in time to the little girl she used to be…
I hope so
I hope so

So goodnight, you moonlight ladies
Rockabye, sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won’t you let me go down in my dreams?
And rockabye, sweet baby James

https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/August_1-2,_1983_Blossom_Music_Center,_Cuyahoga_Falls,_OH