The Way

of music.  I listened.

And footsteps found
themselves against the
edges of midnight and
the stardust of falling
snow.  Streetlight shredded
the sinews of vision.
The war disappeared,
the radio and TV spoke
from a memory.

And.  History is a coal
seam deep in the flesh
of the earth, the soul;
deep in the rain-speckled
sidewalk, the pattern.

There is no escape.
Fractals of violence become
the big picture, the
only answer, the only way
that the sun will set.

It was a Tobermory morning,
Little Tub walking and
the seagulls acrobatic above
the shackled boats,  people

searching for what they already
had.  I was jazz.  Everything
fell on the second moment.

And the second moment was
memory, chorus, a step back
to where I was before, to where
the sun rose out of the set,

reliving.  In music, time is
folded in upon itself, drums
and bass guitar and words
are history, the way I
remember the news —

stories from elsewhere until
you walk in those notes.