Ah well, my friend, you know that I am still crying. I have a sorrow, and I am not denying:
I miss John Lennon and his Music and candor; and it's been fourteen years, I've heard only slandor. I see that those around me gauk with great wonder, and I am full aware: there's darkness to sunder.
AH well, my friend, you know that I was quite young when I saw John Lennon on the t.v. with his friends. We were excited just to see their mouths singing. Who knows what hope and peace thier antics were bringing? I was a little girl who felt disappointment to read the caption that he had a wife. It was to me just like the end of my life. And I could only say,
" I love you, John."
Now, I was just a little girl in a far land, and how absurd to think to reach to hold his hand. with every song he sang I had to give answer: like being in the same room with this dancer. and I remember every thought with its feeling: and I just have to say, "I love you, John."
I've been so lonely now since you've been gone. I want to find you, oh my precious one. And I just have to say," I love you, John."
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So begins the song which became my mantra from August of 1994 to now. Morning, noon, mid-day, evening, night, middle of the night... when I stoked the wood stove... when I put my kids to bed... when I got them up... it is a sound that has been echoing and reverberating in the northern canadian sky... going up like a prayer into the stars and the northern lights... for... more than 12 years.
I was very devestated when I heard that John had died. I almost died of a broken heart... I was walking around for.. more than a month or two.. bent over.. and it was a weight in my chest.. even when I was thinking that,,, I had to go on.. somehow..
and it was disturbing to me.. I was living in Sarnia, Ontario (I think we became a suburb of Detroit around that time).. and.. there was almost no airplay of John's songs... I remember scanning from station to station... just trying to get a song... whether Beatles. or John. any where. It was enough for me to think at a later date... "when John was dead and burried and forgotten: on or around the 10th of December, 1980.."
During the last half of the 1980's, I spent some time trying to talk to governments, politicians, publishers, magazine editors, newspapers, and other artists (famous ones, I mean)... about John and his death... and..it seemed to be a topic that no one wanted to hear much about. at the time.. then we descended into the vortex of abysmal poverty... moved into tents and built a house... with no plumbing, no electricity, no phone.. and the batteries died in the radio... so, it became a long drawn out survival scene... raising small animals for meat, and gardening in the clay for a few beans...
In 1994, the song, which I quoted above was written as I was sitting on a bed in Crisis housing. I had run for life and limbs with the eight youngest of the children... all of them less than 12 years old... and I had to begin life as a person with no identity.. it was like I had no name and had never existed... and a bit of a basket case as well... more than a bit.
I was unacustomed to electricity... and totally unprepared to live in a city... so I returned to the bush, and lived in a small house... and continued to burn wood to heat... had to carry water for 4 years... until a drilled well alleviated that problem.. and I sang this song, to get me through each day. Now I share it with you.
