Willow Tree

Mickey Newbury, the great American song writer who died a few years ago, wrote a song that's always been a favorite of mine for the sense of what it says. The song is "Willow Tree", but part of the lyrics goes like this:


Wish I was a grain of sand
Playin' in a babys hands
Fallin' like a diamond chain
Into the ocean.

...

A grain of sand is all I ever wanted to be
Lay me down let the water
Wash right over me wash over me.

...

Oh a grain of sand
Is all I ever wanted to be
Lay me down and let the water
Wash over me wash over me.


I bought the album the first time I heard this song and it's alway stuck in the back of my mind, trying to understand what it would be like to be a grain of sand and to lie on the beach and have the ocean wash over me, to travel where the waves take. To feel free with the water and the water carrying me, cleansing me of whatever I gained sitting somewhere else.