A picket fence is nothing
but a xylophone to the ephemeral kid,
he's picked out his sticks
in this instant
from a dumpster, formerly for stirring
paint, a cat tail whippet in the next,
comes by my wake, but for now
he's got this giant two-step, as if to slip
on banana peel, the peacock colors of the sticks
a timpani system for mysterious
rhythm.
Oh kid, you got it, you hit it,
here at the passing away
of one day unto another, he feels it,
he does, I whisper, and he does,
for this day, this instant
is all about
rattling sixteenths unconcerned
as steel wheels on tracks,
as if he's twelve
prayers of player
in one body, easy
syncopation lifting to strike, then holding
it back, those simple purple and pastel
sticks gripped so loosely,
with a prodigy's nonchalance, half
of the fist, the rest sort of fizzing pure
like mizzen mast, lifting ocean's mist,
and the splinters make a perfect brush, fit
for Tito Puente.
What a trip, kid, those fricking
riffs, here at my wake, I tell this
semi angelic one,
in vanilla doo rag, bolo tie, silver Beatle boots,
all that static electric, streaming
out the side: what pride of the neighborhood
is this? His long thin limbs, on the cusp of deciding
which trills to skip, and which to flip, unto fill,
this minute, some grandstand featuring Buddy
Rich, his lips locked
on a duck bill and eyeing just those
sticks, frog's head bobbing,
nodding, bobbing,
nodding.
I'm thrilled as any poor thing, passing,
as a matter of course in this instant, from the ass
end of this almost winter street, I listen
as the moment
greets those ghost sprinkler heads
in the round, the last of the dearly departed
summer, and they whisper back
and forth,
so quick while leaves rain
down rain, the colors so furiously
frantic as if to attempt mating
with the birds,
the birds in the time called
fall, the time left, set to music . . .
That's it, that's it, kid, find your licks,
transitory and sublime, here at my winter
wake, we tap along
in time, we tap and tap
taps, and go
blind.
You are going
now, to ascend, over the snow fall
and flurries, over all the worldly cares
of the towns and tombs
below;
go on, and make your
boarding gate at Heathrow,
Dulles, good souls on a red eye
coming home the old
fashioned way, by a plane
boss, and life
is briefly sane, or
at the least
fair:
and you are so
going to be there, going
somewhere, oh as we say, the people
sway, so many inevitable
passengers, Stevie Wonders
with aisle seats that kick back,
beaded dreadlocks, ear buds pop
a kind of mangled angel shakes you
awake, drops you off with a smile
of yellow taxi for half a mile
of tarmac, sun glint on chrome
in this bright morning sun . . .
You're the blessed one, a thousand
mistakes turning
now, in your favor,
bank right, barrel roll, the sudden rudder
flaps, beauty nap defies every iteration
of roar, and pain, and care, for you
are the Rocket Person:
we bask
in your glare.
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