#107: Ode To Vinyl

The love poem for my dear wife is forthcoming, especially in light of all she’s been through lately.  Need some time to get it right, though, so, today’s assignment from NaPoWriMo is to write a love poem for an inanimate object. Here’s to another love:

Ode To Vinyl

I was 23 and bought
the new gospel about the
superiority of the new
digital format,
the compact disc,
and I sold my entire vinyl
collection and used the proceeds
from two or three hundred records
to buy ten cd’s.
Vinyl, please forgive me.
I’ve come back to you again,
24 years later, and you’re so
much heavier now, in a
good way, and often
more colorful, and I remember
now why I loved you so,
the listening so much more
intimate, the way I had
to gently lift you from
your sleeve, the way my
fingers attentively touched
only the edges, the way I
could only leave you alone
(but rarely did) for fifteen
minutes, the way I turned
you over lovingly on
the turntable, the pop
and hiss you made initially,
all fading away with the warmth
of the music. I’m rediscovering
all of that afresh.
So ultra hipster is the new
vinyl enthusiasm, that
the digital download of my
new Beck LP comes complete
with opening and closing
pops and crackles–and that
beautiful alarm at the end
of each side A and B,
the fwump fwump fwump
that tells us that for now,
until we make our next
deliberate move, the music is over.