Jazz Poem for My Mother
Clyde Kessler
1
My mother feels the jazz this morning
among the white and pink spider flowers.
They host sweat bees and one fritillary
sunning at the edge. It’s a living music
sounded into the ground. It draws her near.
Down past the spring branch, she hears
a thrush chittering to weeds. It names her
almost like the way she named me, almost
like shadows inside a song. Trees dissolve.
Katydids begin slurring the summer clouds.
2
If trees dissolve, if trees,
she learns late their names, their flowers.
If the trumpet of the Lord sounds, if it sounds,
the flowers sound their own colors.
Bees huddle in their hive, in their dissolving tree.
Spirit nears the body, silence draws it.
Music opens the distance. Singing opens it.
Down past the river cane, she hears heaven.
Music closes the distance. Singing closes it.
