"Starfish"

Greg found a starfish on the beach in Florida. Of everyone on that trip, the Hoover High Marching Band tip to the Tangerine Bowl in December 1981, no one appreciated nature more than Greg, so no one deserved a starfish more. I remember Greg’s bedroom was always filled with animals, both living and preserved. Fittingly, he went on to become a veterinarian. He died just a couple years ago. He was one year younger than me. I shouldn’t refer to him as “Greg,” because I always called him “Gerg.” He was one-third of the oddball recording group we called We the People in high school. We recorded one tape, The Non-Album, which consisted of eight or nine very weird songs recorded in slapdash fashion using such instruments as my Rhodes Kark I, a Yamaha CS-5 (an early monophonic synthesizer), a very old ocarina, an antique pump organ, a marshmallow tin, pre-recorded cassettes of background noise, and various whistles and kazoos. Ole was usually our lead “singer” (using the term loosely), and who knows where he is these days. Ole never seemed to adapt very well to the real world. Of the three of us, I was the most accomplished “real” musician, but my contributions to the groups were probably the least notable.

This song was another poem by Becky Talmadge that I set to music.

Starfish

© 1985 Brian Hutzell & Rebecca Talmadge

Dull against the glittering sand

A four-armed starfish

Washed by white waves

Onto the rocks

The missing limb

Lost from the storm-severed relationship

Time will heal the scar

No longer wracked by phantom pain

Hope is in the loyal four

With more effort

The four will reach as one

Into the warm ocean

And yet

If only one hope stays on

With time

A whole new being grows

"Star"

Brian Hutzell