CIMARRON RIVER

I hope everyone has a Happy Fathers Day.

I had wanted to write an Oklahoma song since 2007, the Centennial year of Statehood. Only recently did this song come along as part of my ‘Life by Rivers’ collection.  I say it “came along” because that’s the way it happens with the songs I write. It starts with a phrase or an image and the suggestion of a tune and suddenly the lyrics just come tumbling out. I know I’m composing but it all seems more like a gift given and received. I’m grateful. 

 

This one’s for Diana.

 

CIMARRON RIVER

There’s a place that they call Oklahoma

She has been a good friend to me
I made my home where the buffalo roam
In a land where they live to be free

You can see it painted deep in their faces

It’s a love passed from father to son
Like the old man who cried just before he died
And told me what he wanted done

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River
Lay me down near my home in the Plains
Where the eagle soars high in a clear blue sky
And wildflowers wait for the rain

Redbuds blossom in springtime

Cool breezes blow in the fall
Come autumn nights under stadium lights
We cheer for our team one and all

Red brothers and sisters before us

Were the ones to give this land its name
And throughout the years and a Trail of Tears
Had the grace and the grit to remain

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River…

Folks smile here the first time they meet you

They assume that you’re already friends
They know hard times come to everyone
And they’ll stand by your side to the end

So if you like the wide open spaces

Then this is the place you should be
But lift up your head, it’s like Woody said:
“This land was made for you and me”

 Chorus:

Bury me by the Cimarron River…

© 2015 Dale Petley (Oklahoma City)

PRIMUM NON NOCERE

I have been blessed to have had two Christian Godfathers. The first (and official) one was a barber by trade. The second (unofficial) one did all the training necessary to become a psychiatrist before deciding that his true calling was to be a General Practitioner or as he likes to put it, a family doctor. I couldn’t help thinking how much he looked the part one wintery evening when he showed up years ago at our home wearing his stethoscope around his neck and carrying his little black doctor’s bag. He was making a house call to see my ailing grandmother. If you’re old enough to remember house calls then you might also recall milk delivery and how blueberries used to taste ... but I digress.

My first paying job was in a doctor’s office. I was put in charge of organizing files. Thinking back on it all I now realize my ‘job’ really amounted to a make-work project designed to keep me out of trouble during the relative idleness of summer. Be that as it may I learned many valuable lessons during those months. I came to understand the vital importance of discretion and confidentiality. Mostly though, I was blessed by observing the kindness, care, and compassion with which this beloved physician treated his patients.

Over the years I have found that illness can be a great teacher as well as a powerful catalyst for change. It bursts the bubble of complacency and shatters the illusion of self-sufficiency. It reminds us of our common humanity and shows us how we are all fragile vessels. It can also recall us to the fact that we are a lot less in control than we like to think we are, and that rather than succumbing to the ultimately slavish insistence of being the Captain of our own ship and the Director of our own play, true freedom may be found in surrender to one greater than our small self; one who can restore us to health and sanity.

One of my favorite sayings is ‘Primum non nocere’ – ‘First, do no harm.’ This sums up precisely the sort of conservatism I can get behind for it insists, as Yogi Berra might say, that we avoid improving things worse. And it means more than that. It reminds us that people are not merely problems to be fixed or puzzles to be solved but that their well being is our highest priority.  I have failed woefully over the years in living up to this standard, and yet, I continue in my aspiration to do so. I cannot imagine a better way of celebrating the precious gift of life. It is the way of Asclepius, Hippocrates, Saint Luke the Physician, and my Godfather, a family doctor.