The Johnny Cash Trail

I wake up in the morning next to you
Muted sunshine pouring through
And from my bedroom we see so many trees reaching for the sky
Italian pines and redwoods sequoias and oaks so green
And like a magnet, I'm drawn to you
And like an anchor cast into the ocean from a ship, I fall into you

I hear my garden calling me
The begonias, the English lavenders,
the violas, and the lilies, and the California poppies
And the morning glories
And my herb garden full of parsley, various mints, and rosemary
Hey, let's go take a walk along The Johnny Cash Trail
Splash around in the American Rivеr and walk across
the bridges, and through the Cеntral California Hills
And walk by Folsom Prison
I heard Suge Knight did some time in there
It made me hurt, when in the documentary, he said,
"How could it be me? 'Pac was worth more alive than dead."

And now I'm laying on my couch on my wrap-around porch
A distraught friend's coming over,
her and her husband are talking divorce
I've made the guest room nice for
her, fresh pillowcases and clean sheets
And I put a blue vase in the window full of morning glories
And I'm re-reading Nine Stories as we wait
for her, I haven't read it since my early 20s
Oh that's right, Seymour Glass,
Seymour Glass lost his mind,
and on this planet, he wasn't meant to last
And in the story Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,
I'd forgotten about how Eloise cried to Mary Jane in the end
When she remembered the girl from school
making fun of her brown-and-yellow dress
And while rereading For Esmé— With Love and Squalor,
I thought I'm a little bit like Henry
Miller, and a little bit like J.D. Sallinger
I'm like Sallinger in that I like my solitude and my privacy,
and I'm like Miller in that I can also
be gregarious and fairly good socially
And like both of them I'm funny and to the point,
like both of 'em I can pull at your heartstrings
But overall, I'm more like Miller in that I write autobiographically
Direct and reckless Sallinger goes for
the heart, Miller goes for the solar plexus

And I close the book when my friend pulls up the driveway
She's in tears and I show her to her
room, she tells me that she'll be hiding away
And Caroline goes up to the bedroom, and we kiss goodnight
And I tell her and my friend downstairs that I'll be nearby
On the patio,
next to a pack of cigarettes, looking up at the stars in the sky
The breeze is mild, the euphoric scent of my Island Pines
Watering Spanish faces full of succulents and weeds and cacti
And a part of me is living, but a part of me feels like it has died

All I know is that the atmosphere tonight is all mine
Down the stairs is one of my best
friends and upstairs is the love of my life
And I'm out here under the porchlight looking out for both of them
Like Atticus Finch on the courthouse steps protecting Tom Robinson
The world is at once so painful and uncertain and yet so blind
All I know for sure is that the atmosphere tonight is all mine
And I'm rereading another story, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes