FIREBIRD

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Submitted Date 09/28/2019
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Firebird
Age 65, Snug Harbor, Sealevel, North Carolina, 2010
A poem to a poet I had not met but who inspired me to write these poems.

-- This is one poem, from my autobiographical series of poems, that I posted here at WriteSpike. Go to my Stories section for others. They are in chronological order. --

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.
If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.
They teach you there's a boundary line to music.
But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
~ Charlie Parker ~

In Eastwood's movie
Charlie Parker listened to
The Rite of Spring

"How can he hear all those sounds?"
he said before he got into a car
and drove to Stravinsky's home

late and unannounced
at Igor's gate
a drunken Bird could not explain
and Stravinsky walked away

we can only guess
what kind of music
they might have made

* * * * *
when I read your poems
memories overflow
like a forgotten photo album
or my father's
Victorian paperweight
that scattered light
to paintings, books
unpredictable
when the sun hit it

like when
a bunch of us kids
measured and cut a board
then snuck down in our boats at night
to place it in the groove
at the top of the old mill spillway -
it fit perfectly
and added twelve inches
to Shawme pond
where we swam every day

a memory that had been lost
until I read your poems

now I know
you have not met me
but unlike Bird
I will, at least,
tell you who I am
and who knows...

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