She Wrote A Long Letter

Margarita
by The Traveling Wilburys

Margarita, ah

Margarita, ah
Oh

It was in Pittsburgh, late one night
I lost my hat, got into a fight
I rolled and tumbled, till I saw the light
Went to the big apple, took a bite

Still the sun went down your way
Down from the blue into the gray
Where I stood I saw you walk away
You danced away

My, my Margarita

I asked her what we’re gonna do tonight
She said “Cahuenga Langa-Langa-Shoe Box Soup”
We better keep tryin’ till we get it right
Tala mala sheela jaipur dhoop

She wrote a long letter
On a short piece of paper

Margarita

She Wrote A Long Letter

“She wrote a long letter on a short piece of paper.”
–The Traveling Wilburys, “Margarita”

[This here speech is simultaneously dedicated to the memories and examples of Walt Whitman and Mike Fink.]

The other day I was on the phone telling them about myself, the way I always do, and all the while I was thinking: “Hey! I’m a wizard of osmosis, a natural of gnosis. When I’m hungry, I know I’m hungry; I eat. Aware of the weather by looking up, too smart to come in out of the rain, I see, smell, taste, feel, hear, and know. I don’t commute, I go. I’m not driven. I pad, crane, crawl, jump and run. When I have wings I travel flying. When I have fins, I travel swimming. I’m borne on strange currents in the midst of the sky. I’ve leapt the mid-Atlantic ridge in a single bound. I’m pollen captured in cloud and sand paintings left eons in the basement of the ground. I’m ephemeral and everywhere in motion. ‘I ain’t no pig without a wig.’ ”

I thought, “I’m in iron, nitre, mud and grass. I’m wattle and daub, I’m granite rock,” and as I stood there musing, unbeknownst to me, footsteps silently approached, and slipping up behind me, a voice so sweetly ripe with lightly richly mysteriously humorous desire that it ought to be registered with the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms startled me and said, “That’s some bump you’ve got on there.”

While I was thinking, “I carry on the jet stream, Ice Cream. When I stand, I stand in the center of the fire,” I started to turn. Waiting for my turn to finish I thought some more, and thought, “When I’m fire, I’m fire in the rain. I predict run-off. The stories I refuse to tell, sell.”

Complicating my turn, as she looked me over, I looked her over and said, “You have lustrous eyes and shining skin. Or is it shining eyes and lustrous skin? I never seem to get the proper phrases for times like these right.” I said, “Your atmosphere is all I can do to breathe. Your bones glow delicately at the corners of your frame, yet you are not without curves conic in their sectional perfection. You could either be sold into slavery for the harem, or be given half the Kingdom.”

She replied, asking, “I recognize your face, It’s your name I can’t place.”

What could I do? She had the gun. I said, “I’m no mean tracker, bear boned, no accumulator, a caravan, a convoy, a crossing, a condition of means. Arch-detector of surprise, no end, I’m onto something. I push and movements part. The center holds. I shoot straight into the crookedest part. A whole to the sum of each my starving part, I’d walk all day to look into your eyes.”

And as she undid the iron-bound chest which holds the desires of my most secret heart, I thought some more, but didn’t say, “You need no more than you carry, and carry no more than you need. The arc of your being catches me wherever you are, in the glint of the air on the edge of the sea; In the smoke where there is fire. I’m boneshaken.

She held out her hand, and I thought we were probably going to be all right.

(The first word that comes out of our mouths is a “haw!” Now and then we laugh in awe. Bow to the blow and born to strange sights, more than once the things we say will go. Under the cover of darkness one of these days the light will be at our door. )