You Gotta Have Friends: as blackbirds spoke Zarathustra

Bette Middler at the Continental Baths, 1970. 

Sitting around in court.  

With  friends like these... https://twitter.com/i/moments/1096800603085422592?cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjcw%3D%3D&refsrc=email

“Cause you gotta have friends…”

Bette sang at the Continental  Baths, 

At  the parade, breaking  up a riot.

Cause you gotta have friends;

To meet you in jail.

Solidarity forever?
To fight the police. 

To catch a lunch

Or a trip to Red Hook for a  bite on Pioneer Street. 

Or down the street in the  Gowanus for a  birthday, sharing a snack

To make a bagel.

To sing a birthday for the niece born  16 years ago.

Her favorite poet Mary Oliver.

You gotta have friends.

To catch some lunch.

To light a fire.

To read a poem.

It’d be nice to be in Ireland, says Caroline.

But Brooklyn is not too  bad.

You know, Thus spake Zarathustra had a section  on friends.  

“The friend of the anchorite is always the third one…

which preventeth the conversation of the two sinking into the depth.”

And sometimes there are two. 

You know, Benjamin  and Adorno went  to grade school together,

Adorno admired Benjamin.

Who looked for praise from Adorno.

as  time  went  on.

Friends who fought.

And then it was over.

You gotta have friends.

Mark recalled his Dad who loved Stevens, reading him till  the end.

Recalling 13 Ways of Seeing a Blackbird.

“The river  is moving,

The Blackbird must be flying…”

                   Friends elevate and pull, lulling and reminding us of our limits:

“… tell me, ye men, who of you are capable of friendship?

…There is comradeship: may there be friendship!”

Wonders Nietzsche.

Always a mystery.