I pulled out all the tiles from my Magnetic Poetry® Wood Words box. From the moment I began to assemble my poem from among them, I knew exactly who and what inspired it. When I placed a specific word, I also knew what photo from my archives I hoped to find to share with the finished poem.
From September 2009, based on a challenge from television’s “Project Runway” for my website’s “Runway Monday” series, I found her. She’s in fashion I designed for her of silk, satin, polyester, tulle, and crepe. A sheer coincidence only a handful of people will understand: I’d named this doll Maggie and said she was dressed as a Time Traveler. I’m grateful to my Muse and this Mattel Model Muse doll. I hope she likes the role she plays. There’s no role I’d rather have in my world than writer.
Here’s her poem, destined to be named “Time Traveler.”
©Becky Cochrane, 2025
Today is the anniversary of the date Riley died in 2008. The L.A. fires and their consequences have kept me emotional for the last week already, so this year, Riley’s loss feels a little sharper. The other night, Tom and I watched
The Last Waltz, which I haven’t seen probably since the late seventies, when it was released. I still remembered the songs, the performers (band members and musical guests), and some of the conversations with members of The Band as they talked about how the concert (the focus of the film, as directed by Martin Scorsese) was bringing to an end their sixteen years of performing on the road.
Though most of the members worked together again, they never again performed live as a group with Robertson. Now all are gone, except for keyboardist Garth Hudson, who’s 87 and has been reported as a resident in an assisted living facility since 2022, when his wife Maud died. ETA: Garth Hudson died on January 21, five days after this post.
- Richard Manuel: Died in 1986 at the age of 42
- Rick Danko: Died in 1999 at the age of 55
- Levon Helm: Died in 2012 at the age of 71
- Robbie Robertson: Died in 2023 at the age of 80
I think the footage of The Band singing with Bob Dylan got to me the most, maybe because Riley loved him so much and considered him a songwriting muse. I had a lump in my throat listening to “Forever Young” and “I Shall Be Released.” So many memories. In an alternate life, Riley and I might have ended up in L.A., friends sharing a house in a neighborhood like Altadena, while I pursued all the things that would have informed my fiction and he played everywhere anyone wanted to hear a guitarist, pianist, and songwriter. I’m not sure either of us ever wanted fame and fortune as much as the chance to create and be true to ourselves. Riley did play all over the Southeast (I’m not sure about his time in Nevada), and he wrote a lot of songs. I never lived further west than Texas, but I’ve had fiction published, and what I’m working on now includes real settings (many of them decimated by the fires) and celebrates my fictional artists (none of them native-born Angelenos) of Los Angeles.
I’m so grateful for the years of friendship Riley and I shared. Though we aren’t the Muse and Time Traveler of the poem, Riley’s part of why they exist.
