With Us Yet 

Theirs’ was a kind of mediation between then and now
No, it was a meditation on their only freedom: the deliverance of their music
No, no: a melding. One musician calling out: another answering.
Or maybe, a metaphor for the chorus of life
The way Lady-Day lamented the brief glory of love
And Sarah gilded the edges
Or the way Bird flew us to on-high
Where we heard the swollen notes Miles blew … so piercing they hurt
The pain, the racism, the drugs
Miles paused
Long enough for Ellington to step in with a silver epiphany
That sailed us to the secluded bridge where Coltrane stood with his sax
Struggling to find the chorus furthest out
The unreachable notes
The songs never attempted,
But instead, unknowingly, he bridged the gap between then and now
and took them to be with us yet.

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