MEDITATION WHILE LISTENING TO SOME LATIN JAZZ

swing swagger and sway
she bop she bop drift those feet
first one way then another
swirl round and round and back again
light up the floor fly up above
the chandeliers up where the music
wanders on its way into memory

where music’s invention of time
is lost refound soars on imagination’s
wings into memory’s timeless space
where all is now and all is lost and all
is gained and all the costs of living
are stored in a personal inventory open
only to the self shuffling through life

down a long constantly shifting path
adrift toward whatever awaits
and meantime we dance to all the music
life creates one hopeful despairing
daring step after another as we laugh
cry sing and stutter step through
our winding spiraling days

_____

Michael L. Newell is a retired secondary school English/Theatre teacher who currently lives on the south-central Oregon coast. He has had poems recently published in (among other places) Verse-Virtual, Culture Counter, The Iconoclast, Ship of Fools, and Red Eft Review.