Sitting in front of us at David Gilmour’s Sunday night
show at Madison Square Garden, is a family of three—
mother, father, and teenage son. I have never seen hair
so glossy and black, as if they are enchanted crows that
will fly out of the stadium once the concert is over and
the spell is broken. But for now, mother and son look
like a painting called Madonna and Child, so close they
are, so intricately bonded. He keeps laying his cheek
against her shoulder, one dark head against another—
while his father gyrates and headbangs in his seat, fully
immersed in his experience of the incredible music, the
multicolor lights. There is a tenderness to their boy, an
innocence, as if he is a beloved only child not yet ready
to leave the nest or mingle with other kids his age who
would, by now, have toughened him up or damaged him
in ways he cannot imagine. His parents will keep him
safe from anything that can cause him harm, or so they
may believe. But my parents lost their only son when
he was a few years older. I can still recall my father’s
stoic façade, my mother’s decades of grief from which
she could not be saved nor solaced. Meanwhile, David
Gilmour goes on singing and playing his guitar while
the boy splays his fine-boned fingers like talons on his
mother’s arm, and his father belts those haunting lyrics
like he wrote them—as if his body was never covered in
feathers, his mouth an open beak crying caw, caw, caw.
Terri Kirby Erickson is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Rattle, The SUN, and numerous other publications. Her awards include the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, International Book Award for Poetry, and the Annals of Internal Medicine Poetry Prize among many others. She lives in North Carolina, USA.
