The Pantheon

Cole Porter. John Lennon. Amadeus. Leonard Cohen.

These are the people I'd like to meet in heaven.

Will they be in the same room?

Will they be in the Pantheon of songwriters?

Will I be allowed into the room?

Will I have to show my ID? Will I have to display a lexicon of my work in orderer to enter or will I be allowed to glide in like Jay Zee at the hottest night club in Manhattan?

Or will I be standing out in the cold waiting for a look of encouragement from some heavenly bouncer?

I'm not sure.

I'm thinking about the greatest tragedy of life.

The tragedy of never being able to prove oneself.

Will my work ever be able to stand up to the rest of the Lexicon, or will it merely be a footnote of some family tree of which I am a single branch?

Will my son ever venture into my lexicon?

Or will he be so bored of Daddy's dreams that it will be placed kindly into a box and left on some shelf in the garage only to be shuffled into the garbage pile that my grandchildren have made?

When my great grandfather died, I was nothing.

When my grandfather died I was in my mid twenties, and there was nothing left of him to give me but a few anecdotes and a pile of motorcycle parts.

When my father dies, I have recordings, memories written in ink, memories written in  cyberspace. Pictures and items of great personal worth.

My son will at least have those when I too die.

But what will become of them?

What will my grandchildren know of me?

Most likely every little.

And their children even less.

Unless.

One day. By pure miracle.

My work trancends my family and friends and finds a home among the pop culture for which it was written and to which it belongs.

But that is a dream.

A dream which can never be fulfilled, but a dream which sustains me none the less.

I believe I can hang with that crew.

the Pantheon of great songwriters.

And not feel myself the foolish man I feel myself today.

Because when everything is stacked against me.

when Life shreds its secret and tells me that I am just a small bit of material in a vast universe of matter,

I still dream.

So dream. Everyone.

dream.