INTRODUCTIONNearly all of the poems included in Riversong are new. They are expressions of personal love, transcendentalrealization, and my deep involvement with nature and music.

STREAM. .

. RIVER.

. .

FLOW, that starts off the FOREVERSONGS Section, for example, is a journey from youth's firstrealization of the power of music, when as a nine-year-oldboy, lying in bed, I held a plastic radio up to my ear, listeningto "The Grand Ol' Opry," and heard for the first time themagical guitar of Chet Atkins. I had never heard anythingremotely like what he was doing with his music.

I was transportedinto the first heaven I had ever known. That musical experience awakened me to the realizationthat life itself is a stream, a river, an eternal flowng thatforever surrounds us and infuses us and carries us throughwaves of music, which only sometimes do we become awareof.

Life is a RIVERSONG filled with light, fire, and beauty. Life itself is that RIVERSONG.

As my life streamed on, other adventures appearedto me in that music flow - such as running away fromhome in Big Spring west Texas as a 14-year-old boy, hitchhikingto Memphis, stealing a row boat, and sailing downthe Mississippi River. That journey was the first of many adventures thatriver-streamed through my life, including learning how todrink beer as a college student, how to make love, and, lateron, how to play guitar, which hearkened me back to the musicof Chet Atkins.

STREAM. .

. RIVER.

. .

FLOW also includesa mini-biography of my journey as the lead guitarist with a"wild-haired singer" (which some readers will recognize asTim Buckley. ).