One or Two Things Sacred to Sorrow

Coleman Hawkins doing that thing

with his sax: high

and lonely as a kestrel

twirls on thermals, sorting

files of sound with a singular

finger, now alighting

in pools of light, hovering

then fixed like whirring

wings of the insect glazed

in serous amber but

dreaming of oxygen:

Sound leading a mind

into that sobriety

of thought which poises

the heart. Sound like that,

holding and giving out

never. Sound quickened

with desire. Sound

the benefit of nature

in taut bolts of time, rich

polychrome threads, count:

Two-sixty. Sound blots out

the violence of affliction

bringing it home lonely

but good, letting

it bend: We

had much more reason being

winged ones to recollect than forget.

Source: The Quick (University of Washington Press, 2005)