JONI

There once was a golden-haired girl 

Who took rock and roll for a whirl 

Becoming Bard of Laurel Canyon

She could well have been companion

Of Picasso or Nietzsche or Ellington

A titanic teller of truth 

Who patched over the holes in my youth

She was the quintessential queen 

Of the seventies rock scene 

Controversial and proudly uncouth 

—

Her wickedly wise way with words

Was not meant for pleasing the herds

With a determined dedication 

She provided a narration

Of our doubts and desires and discoveries

That we all have fractures and fears

Which collect just like dust through the years 

She told the tales of many folks

Through her music and brushstrokes 

That for millions acted like mirrors

—

At twenty she gave up her kid 

A secret she painfully hid 

From western Canada she wandered

And a lifetime later pondered 

What on Earth she had asked of or done to God 

To be cursed with feelings of thread

In her skin—a delusion, they said 

She’d finally met her long-lost child  

After years in Hollywild 

But could not shake these thoughts from her head 

—

And that wasn’t all her bad luck 

In childhood, polio struck

But it imbued her with conviction 

That if healed from this affliction 

She’d escape from the prairies and make her mark

Oh the gifts that came from this mess!

And propelled her to global success 

Like putting Woodstock down in verse 

Though the masses would disperse

As her brilliance boldly progressed    

— 

She lived by her own set of rules

Refusing to suffer the fools 

Half Dionysus, half Apollo

Her detractors couldn’t follow

How one woman, at once, could be everything 

Self-reliant, sage, and sublime 

Turning romance and rage into rhyme  

The creativity she’d stoke!

With a little wine and smoke 

Making art to endure for all time