Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

Poet Songs and Jazz Bands

(“You may drink from the brook. And I have commanded ravens to bring you food there.” 1 Kings 17:4)

I used to sit right up front,
I didn’t want to miss a thing. The way the sound passed
through the throat of the poetess I loved. I didn’t want
a single note to drop on the darkwood floor. I used to
write whatever came to mind.

There were rooms like water, the saxophone streamed over
the casement in background sounds of summer meadows.
We liked jazz, we loved Brubeck,
we danced if another would dance first.
There were lazy brooks
that smoothed stones for us to put in our pockets
and display on our shelves at home.

I used to hear the espresso hiss, black as ravens served in
ceramic thimbles. The troubadour never missed the chance
to soar between sad eyes and aspirations. We breathed the
same air, heavy like upholstery, waiting for the piece of bread
we would pass from table to unknowable. We never cared
for
the first cut or the upper crust,
we saw visions in the cups of wine set between us.

But some venues close and become
parking lots or clothing stores or memories lost
in youthful ideals. We thought we might find it again.
Maps are sometime edited, locations pressed flat
and forgotten.

Now I sit near the back,
if I go anywhere at all. Though today I did invite
a bald eagle whose white face and plume
seemed to take in everything. The sun broke the
field where cattle grazed
into perforated patches, an opportunity hatched
between land and sky. Looking past the clouds I
returned, still unsatisfied.

There are streams that never evaporate, if only
in mind.
There are birds that sing the songs you once heard
from poets, jazz bands and campfires in a simple
Kum Ba Yah.