Hearing “Yesterday”

paul_beatle Paul McCartney, my teenage idol

While the world is grieving over the death of David Bowie, I express my sorrow at his loss, but my teenage years were filled with the Beatles and their music.

the-beatles

I loved them all, and loved all their music, but my favorite was Paul McCartney. And my favorite composition of his was “Yesterday.”

Several years ago I wrote this poem about hearing “Yesterday” for the first time:

Hearing Yesterday

Hearing “Yesterday” the first time – 1964-

my bedroom in the house on Everhart Street,

I was fifteen.

February night.

At night my radio could tune into Boston.

When I turned it on, the song was just beginning –

Three syllables down the scale,

cello droning behind them.

Throat tightened, legs loosened.

My favorite song forever.

Forty-five years later,

troubles not so far away .

One long lost love called in 1971

better to laugh in the desert

than cry by the creek,

but I could not move to the desert.

Today I live by that creek again –

cornered by circumstance,

shedding my escape fantasies,

singing with Ringo

No no no no I don’t smoke it no more…

By the creek,

today tenuous as a spider web,

unpredictable as fire.

I believe in yesterday,

which does not change,

where John Lennon still walks

unaware

out the door of the Dakota.

Another song says don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

But I believe in yesterday.

Another song says the landslide brought me down…

and I’m getting older, too,

so I believe in yesterday.

Published by ahiggins2013

poet, birder, senior citizen, cancer survivor, Catholic sister. Eight books of poetry published: At the Year’s Elbow, Mellen Poetry Press 2000; Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky, Plain View Press 2007; chapbooks: Pick It Up and Read, Finishing Line Press 2008, How the Hand Behaves, Finishing Line Press 2009, Digging for God, Wipf and Stock 2010, Vexed Questions, Aldrich Press 2013, Reconnaissance, Texture Press 2014, and Life List, Finishing Line Press, 2015. View more posts