THE SINGER-SONGWRITER

It is born wrapped in the swaddling fabric of space-time and then cosmically fitted for a non-returnable dime-store designer dreamcoat of awareness heightened to the point of love. In one pocket is a continuum of moods, melodies, reasons and rhymes for apprehending the intensity of being. On the other side is a deeper pouch reserved for memories: A lifetime -- past, present or future -- of who, what, when, where and, sometimes, why. It is an ever-tuneful reporter, and its beat is a hand-me-down world that is not worn too comfortably even in the best of times and despite many alterations. Its song is an editorial madrigal. And when creatively blocked, it is inexplicably reminded that the only thing it has ever needed was tucked mindlessly like a ticket stub into the dreamcoat's inside breast pocket: Everything!