This photo of Robert Creeley's gravestone, off Ron Silliman's blog. In recent days, I've been playing Creeley reading his poems to Steve Swallow's music. It always saddens me to hear a voice of one once so alive who is now dead, but it is better I suppose than the silence of a gravestone.

Oh No

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.



Track One on So There, Robert Creeley (poet) and Steve Swallow (composer), with The Cikada Quartet, and Steve Kuhn on piano. Recorded August 25, 2001 at The Make Believe Ballroom, West Shokan, New York. Released by XtraWATT/12 (ECM Records GmbH). More at http://www.ecmrecords.com

You can hear pieces of tracks off this CD at http://www.legalsounds.com/download-mp3/steve-swallow-with-robert-creeley/so-there/sufi-sam-christian/song_807457