Can I instead say something back to you about the old man
who plays xylophone at the pub at lunch on Wednesdays
How I knew him better when he played downtown
his quiet tones ringing through the joint, and when
he was done, he would quietly pick up the keys and the stand
and the long elegant mallets and place them into his hatchback,
our lives having several resurrections in various contexts,
how he was always a jazz gentleman, a zen kind of the under street,
Can I tell you instead about the time I spent on a summer evening,
sitting on a stool at the old Dazy Maze, lured in by the lights,
and an old bearded bluesman picking away at his electric guitar,
and making the flowers dance in their pots on the sill, and
I couldn't believe but that I had stumbled there, alone,
wanting the night to open up its throat and accept me,
but that some wind some pull yanked me in off the pavement,
and I sunk back away from the fire within me, it became cold, embers.
Can I tell you a story of being in the world, and how my fear
cut me off from so many chance encounters with a small bit of fate,
the kind which so many fail to see or wonder about, but on some
night when the wind fell quiet I could step into my skin,
and come out of the cold, walk up to any musician, and realize
that I just want to know how they do what they do, so I can
return the favor in some way, for the telling of the tale,
for the stretching of the fable, for the clearing of the mystery,
and maybe teach another lost soul how to jump the fence,
and reassume the leap, to quiet the fires, on an otherwise fallen day.