On Elvis & Stephen Hawking sharing the same birthday: January 8th
Oxford & Tupelo, these two worlds could never collide, even in a Hawking
universe where stars swivel & twist, then disappear into black holes. But some
girls swear that Elvis could sway the heavens and flutter an angel's wings with
his satin voice singing, Love me tender. And some men have been known to spend
a life studying time and space and the ten other dimensions that curl into a ball and
usually fall into a deep galactic sleep.
Stephen & Elvis, I like to think, might one day meet in some future galaxy
where a day lasts forever, the nights are just as long, only here the girls will faint
over Stephen Hawking, at the depth of his long gaze when he takes off his glasses
and rubs a silk handkerchief across them, making the girls in their pink polka dot
pajamas giggle and squirm on their slumber party pillows until they can barely sit
at the sight of his swiveling hips and then Elvis saunters in and sighs at the sight
of these girls and their teenage yearning, but he grins and opens a slim volume of
his poems, A Briefer History of Time and begins to read.
Elvis & Stephen, once worlds apart, will one day be together in our ever-expanding
universe for a January 8th birthday party where all the people whose lives they've
touched will be there. People will bring many gifts, so they'll patiently laugh along
with the crowd and sing Happy Birthday, one to the other and each will make a wish
as the candles flicker, the ice cream melts and the wine glasses tilt. Years later, after
all the presents have been unwrapped and the ribbons tossed aside and the last guest
has finally headed off for bed, they'll sit at a long cosmic table and talk about the one
subject they both know so well: music - and how easy it is to dance in the space of a
musical note, a lifetime or star. |
