_____

AT SEVENTY : SOME KIND, OF A SONNET

after playing, my upright
kay bass, my fingers
still loving, the birds eye maple
neck & strings:
my left arm
hurt the next day.

after playing my old
selmer paris trumpet
just like the one
louis armstrong played:
my lungs also hurt, the next day,
just like it’s almost predictable.

the music … is also there … however …
of still playing, just to protect you, for being alive

__________

Alan Yount lives on the north bank of the Missouri River, just south of Columbia, Missouri, and has taken poetic inspiration from boating and floating the river for many years. His poems have been published in a variety of publications, including Palo Alto Review, Roanoke Review, Spring…the Journal of E.E. Cummings Society, Apostrophe Magazine, Columbia College Journal of the Literary Arts, Modern Haiku, Pegasus Review, and Tidepool Magazine. Alan also plays jazz trumpet, and has led his own dance band. He is a direct descendant of the famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone.