The
Path of Survival
(For
Frank Morgan)
There
was something
in
that Bird
song.
If it
wasn’t free
was a
powerful hunger.
What a bird looks like
to
the earthbound
Even
the lumbering
elegance of the
Blue
Heron
reveals
it it
revels, we
envy
flight.
Soul
urge transposed.
Pain is
a weight.
Heavy
& muscular &
the yrs
add
weight-force,
momentum.
Struggle for words
as in notes
they
only shape
air, perhaps
Ojibwa
heritage
African
heritage
strengths
society
fears & pulls
apart.
And what is
under
the seams Frank
Morgan?
Is
it fire?
The
white of a
mighty river?
The
absence of the
fear of death?
The
gratitude?
Prison
Jazz big band
music
lost in
Mingus
sonorities
or
Duke’s?
Leaves
litter our path
after a short
season
of
color.
They hardly
know red
or gold & gone.
Tomorrow’s
dirt. Soon
only voices & train
horns
but while we
wait
we lift a
song out
of Bird’s book,
we
survive traps
he was
caught in,
we
take the good,
pray
for the rest,
we
look inside stoke
fire
expression gesture
invention
scream
if we have
to.
What Bird wanted
was a
trail.
Alto as
machete
Frank.
George is behind
you
urging you
to
cut
cut
cut.
12:30P
– 11.4.01
@