Mother Hibbard

There was a poet in Greenwich Village called Mother Hibbard. Well, biologically, he couldn’t have qualified as a mother. But he acted in a maternal manner to some of us younger habitués of the Village.

Mother Hibbard did regular poetry sets in some of the same coffeehouses I performed in, and between sets we often wound up in the same coffeehouse home away from home, Rienzi’s. I must have heard him recite the poem that began “Be aware, traveler, you’ll never pass this way again” hundreds of times.

In a conversation one night, he explained that we take the everyday for granted. We don’t often retain the feelings, ambiance, or environment of our daily life. We take it for granted until it’s gone, and then we are gripped with nostalgia. So the poem was about the value of the common invariant, and the unique – the people we loved, the atmosphere of places, and the very sense of place.

It wasn’t until I returned to the Village after about a year’s absence that I really grasped what he meant. Things had changed in deep ways. The people whom I’d known intimately were gone, including Mother Hibbard. Stores, and even coffeehouses, had changed; performers in them were absolute strangers. All of a sudden I grasped what he said.

It wasn’t as though one day an entire huge chunk of life had disappeared. It was the cumulative effect of small day-by-day changes; hardly noted unless you’ve been away. And then in a rush you realize that the entire “scene” had changed.

So, be aware, Traveler.