mannah from doctor barn

Driving along the open road.
This comes on the radio:
"We are stardust.
We are golden.
And we've got to get back,
To the garden."
The lyric is so gentle and so sweet. From the hippy era too. I don't normally search for art in the hippy era. But here it is.
Sometimes art doesn't show up where we set traps for it.
Of course the lyrics don't all stand up.
But really.
This is high art. Keats would have been happy enough with this.
I let it flood my mind.
Back at the chateau I find Doctor Barn ensconced in the kitchen with a coffee. He has a sack of clothes beside him.
"Those are for you," he says benificently.
If benificent isn't a word, it should be.
Ah.
Doctor Barn hand me downs.
The sack contains a treasure trove of designer items.
I'm telling you folks, women go crazy for Doctor Barn hand me downs. It's all: "Oh Heelers. That's an original Doctor Barn. Take me now."
Seriously though.
And look.
A polo neck. A polo neck designed by Mr Thomas Hilfigger esquire. Better and better. Polo necks make it look as if I don't have two chins.
So I thanked the brother profusely.
As if by magic, the Mammy appeared.
She favoured me with that look she uses when she's going to try to say something funny.
"Howya Bin Laden," sez she.
I look troubled and perplexed by turns. The Mammy hastens to explain.
"You complain about me always asking you to bring out the bin," quoth she. "So your new name from now on will be Bin Laden. By the way will you bring out the bin? It's full."
Moments later Paddy Pup has joined me for a stroll on the avenue with the bin.
I am singing.
My singing has an ethereal plaintive air. I am singing for the lost generation. Artists I will never know but who are most assuredly my confreres.
If you had passed the avenue on this crisp Monday afternoon with a strange high coldness in the breeze and a pulse of life surging in the hedgerows, you might have heard:
"I am stardust.
I have a double chin.
And my mother's always asking me
To bring out the bin."