Lovin' Baby Girl

 I was a lovin' baby girl

wrapped in the pages of a million old books.

lonesome as the last day of winter,

bright as a penny on the sill in sunlight.

It took me a long time, wandering midnight walks

solitary as Sunday, blue as a pound dog,

to know I was different inside my head

with its all-night jukebox and pocket poets jam.

I was a lovin' baby girl

who thought love was hearts and flowers

hidden in a busker's guitar case

so I ran out barefoot in the strange streets, looking.

I was just a girl, giving it all away,

even the words that fell from my mind.

and I wore away like sea glass

curled on a Great Lakes beach, inside a bottle.

I was a lovin baby girl

who stopped keeping secrets from herself,

once again the child who couldn't shut up,

the one I was, now with a poem behind every bloom. 

I'm still solitary as Sunday, but I haven't been always,

blue as a pound dog, but not as often. 

If I walk the beach, it's in the morning, with a smile

rolling out poems like waves on shoreline, a natural wonder.

______

for What's Going On? -- What is "it" about poetry?  Poetry and music have always been inextricably linked for me. I notice a number of poets today writing about songs they love. Music was and is integral to my life.  This poem is an homage to several songs I loved when I was young and still do. 

The main one I wrote from here is called Second Story Window, sung by Rita Coolidge. Her first solo album was the second LP I ever bought and I still have that same copy. This song was written by Marc Benno; his version: 

The title and repeated line is from Lovin' Baby Girl by Melanie Safka, a song I have referenced in my tags fairly often.

I was just a girl, giving it all away, is an homage to Leo Sayer's Giving It All Away. An anthem of my early adulthood.  

The song is more joyful these days as one thing has built upon the last. And the poetry is something that has only become more satisfying over time.