Morning Cherry - Sun Kil Moon, Mark Kozelek

Looking out over the Carquinez Strait

At the only highrise building in Downtown Martinez

In-between that highrise and Port Costa and Crockett

There’s a long stretch of glorious mountains

Untouched by cement, untouched by man

The land is green, the land is brown

The view is sanguine, though the world’s been so down

It’s the beautiful California I’ve been dreaming about since I was a child

The trees are bunched together like broccoli stalks

Above them, dry patches, look like bright camel humps

The patches are dead weeds from the late-spring heat

That’s what the mountains look like today

And boats are sailing out along the white waves and the silver water

Fishing boats and sailboats and all kinds of barges

My favorite barge is enormous, the cover are white and navy

The name of the barge is Morning Cherry

Hovering the water are seagulls, and inland, there’s the vultures

The sky is blue, the air is mild

The cats are in by night, the coyotes run wild

This is the beautiful California I dreamed of as a child

Pacific, the hills, the lemon orange trees

Lately I’m feeling reticent, quiet, meditative and melancholy

Lately I’m feeling taciturn and uncommunicative

I’ve been spending time in bed laying still and listening to the wind

Listening to the train, the smell of the eucalyptus trees

Coming through my open windows and from my balcony

When I go walking I feel so frowzy

Oh my middle-aged, I feel it kicking in strongly

I feel aches in by bones and my posture has been lousy

By mid-afternoon, I’m always drowsy

So I’ll walk to the water and take my time walking back

I asked a fisherman on the peer, «Hey, what are you catching?»

They say, «Stripers and halibut.»

I say, «How do you have your poles rigged?»

He said, «30-pound test, and for bait we’re using sardines.»

Well one guy’s got a band called Box Blaster

And he plays, «Hey there lonely girl, lonely girl…» over and over

Everywhere I go, every drugstore, every gas station

They’re playing somebody’s version of, «Hey there lonely girl, lonely girl…»

By Eddie Holman, Donnie Osmond, Shaun Cassidy

I guess the radio’s playing what they feel are universal songs in the world

For the many women who’ve got cabin fever

And as for you, I’ll always feel love and fervor

And it never leaves, it’ll be there forever

Even when you’re sleeping across the bed and you leave me here

To read and write and meditate, I miss you so deeply my dear

Went crazy, I wish you were sleeping here beside me

Right now, today, but I guess it’s good to have our time away

Now and then I hear that train whistle blowing

From across the water or nearby, I hear a lawn getting mowed

Lately I’ve been reading John Fante’s West of Rome

When you got down time, you gotta keep your spirit and mind uplifted and intact

When you got down time, you gotta do what you can do to laugh

John Fante’s West of Rome, it makes me laugh

He’s got a dog named Stupid who tries to hump everything he sees

He’s got a wife that wants to leave him because John loves his dog, Stupid,

more than he loves any other thing

And every time I turn on the news, everything looks so hopeless and bleak

Black guys found hung in trees, it’s not the Jim Crow days anymore,

we’re talking about 2020

Black guy in Minnesota choked to death, another one shot in Georgia in the back

Watching TV all day is more toxic than smoking crack

But if I watched the news all day, I’m gonna have a panic attack

They’re looping scenes over and over and over and over, if I keep watching it

makes me feel wack

I care a lot, but I’m too old to be out messing around with protesting

Yeah, I’m 53, I’ve got nothing to prove, I’ve had blacks' backs since I was a

kid walking the streets of Downtown Massillon

I walked the tenderloin streets of San Francisco, I walked the streets of New

Orleans

And when we walked together, I’ve always felt nothing but love and harmony

I’ve got to enjoy the little things in life, like the way my cat scratches up

my favorite chair, and laugh

I’ve got to look at sunflowers and the orange and apple and lemon trees and

enjoy my salt baths

I’ve got to enjoy the California sun and the Bay Area breeze, you know?

And gaze at the water that flows between the mouth of Crockett and Vallejo

Wait for my favorite barge to dock, the big one, colored white and navy

The one that made my

, Morning Cherry