Ledger Poem by Theresa Haffner

1. Debits and Credits.

Bringing It All Back Home. The pen stabs the tar-like sheet.
Ink flows like Blood on the Tracks.

We once thought there would be a quote a Bob Dylan song lyric appropriate for every situation in life.

I can’t tell you how important he was to us. How much he spoke to our hearts and our souls.

He was our Prophet. Our spokesperson.

Each one of us got something personal and profound from him.

But that was before 'Nashville Skyline'- when he changed - when a lot of things changed - and he no longer spoke for us or to us.

We never listened to him again, or bought his records. He ceased to be our leader.

After that we had no leader.

Stabbing the tar-like sheet. After midnight trying to make sense of the debits and credits in an account book where for years nothing has added up right.

The numbers turning into bits of poetry scrawled between the ledger lines more than twenty years out of date.

How quaint. How low tech.

How many years we lived like that—Exiled on Main Street—effectively x’ed out of a society that no longer recognized our needs or credited our payments-

just blithely kept going on—the money getting higher and higher—turning its back on us as surely as Dylan had—

Going faster and faster, glossing over inconsistencies, while we kept going slower—tied to a principle.

The accounts just didn’t add up.



II. Incoherent Universe.

-“Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet—“
-Bob Dylan, Visions of Johanna (Blonde on Blonde) .

Because we had seen the world as basically coherent, now incoherent universe didn’t hold together but pieces kept getting farther apart.

It was really hard on us to change with the changing trend—as if nothing had ever meant anything—as if we didn’t have to add up to zero.

Because debts were successfully executed and our payments were not credited to our accounts.

Even a hundred years difference in our lives would only be glossed over with flair on the radio.

We had seen the universe as coherent—maybe at war with itself but coherent just the same—where there was something to stand for—and something to fight for—and if it was necessary to keep the accounts balanced—something to die for.

Sold out—and never received the payments. The check was in the mail but it was made out to somebody else and never arrived.

There we were waiting for a check that would never come.


III. Spontaneous Remission


-“we’re sitting here stranded although trying our best to deny it—“-Bob Dylan (Ibid.)

Suddenly about a year ago things started to add up in this out of balance universe.

We don’t know the cause of it, but for the first time in 30 or more years we have had a year of uninterrupted growth and coherence.

Benefits accrue from energy invested. Benefits from synchronistic and serendipitous coincidences.

Debits and credits. Now the pen stabs the paper. The tar-like ink like blood.

After 35 years of adult life. After 56 birthdays. To try and balance the ledger.

To see what went wrong and what went right

What we owe and what we’ve got coming

The uncredited deposits

The interest on principle
(if there still is a principle)

and that’s our strong point, because we never gave up our principles, even when the current was flowing the other way-

and those principles that used to be liabilities
are now like money in the bank.


IV. Going Back In Time.

I’m immersing myself in the music of the 1960’s. The psychedelic rock of the San Francisco bands. Quicksilver Messenger Service. Jefferson Airplane. Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Bought new CD’s of the original records. Benefit of hindsight. Have read the books. Studied the history of the period-

-tracing down the origins of a thing-
-going back in time-

Because if you go back far enough you come to a time when the universe wasn’t out of balance

when it was coherent

when things made sense.

If you can go back to where it still made sense, then you come back forward, you can see where it got off track, where it got off balance

maybe then you can find out how to fix it-if it can be fixed-

-repair the rift in your life-

As you credit the debits and debit the credits to get a better understanding of what’s been received and what’s been owed

The totals stack up much better with the re-accounting.

After RFK was assassinated all bets were off.

Somewhere between 1967-Blonde on Blonde-Dylan’s motorcycle accident-and 1970-Altamont-

Something went terribly wrong.
.
Have to go back and retrace the origins of the coherent conditions of the world we found when we came of age

Come to find out it has not always been a world averse to our basic needs and desires.

Because there has always been a pitched battle between the forces of restriction and deterioration

and the current of rational and humanitarian thought.

Because a lot has been lost and a lot has been gained at the expense of something more valuable.

We didn’t teach our children well.

Because a lot of people were really trying to excuse the fact that all the gains in art and culture grew out of consciousness expansion

at the expense of social unacceptability.

And when we got in the really deep water and out of our depth-

a lot of us were unable to escape.

In L.A.-where the buildings we once lived in are torn down and nothing remains of the past

it may not be too late
to reinstate the policies based on principles

Because it was a pioneering effort to say it’s better to have compassion.