The funeral train leaves, and a new train arrives, packed with fresh and optimistic arrivals, each with a shiny new suitcase.
They are always leaving… and always arriving.
I’m reminded of when I got in a deep funk in the late 1970s when so many great musicians died and it seemed only punk and thrash metal was on the airwaves…
Then Bruce Springsteen showed up.
Tony Rice died, and Johnny Cash, and Waylon and Kris…. and then Billy Strings showed up.
We lost John Prine, but gained Jesse Welles.
Nothing was replaced. In music, at least, we still have Woodie Guthrie and Pete Singer and Janis Joplin.
But in politics?
We lose and I feel like we only lose. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are weak wood, and can bear no weight.
And yet….
And yet we have AOC and Jasmine Crocket, Pete Buttigieg and Berne Sanders, Zohran Mamdani and Elizabeth Warren.
Still, I am uneasy. Even the tragic past feels comforting compared to the looming future.
Perhaps, that is how it has always been.
As T.S. Elliot said, “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo"
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