Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Saxophone, #1

The saxophone.
So many tones:
sonic tonic,
or manic panic.

Each with different voice,
By the cat's hippest choice.

Breath on reed
At whatever speed
in the need
of the Moment.

Speaking without a word.
Crying with the world.
Laughing upward.

Cutting through the air
into ears.
Lodging in the soul,
the metalic glare.

The saxophone.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I read (reed) Charlie Parker in the wind of your words. The Bird takes flight....

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Bird, Trane, Sonny Rollins, etc.!

Abby said...

Where's the ode to the human voice? Point by point following your ode, it is superior, I cry! The human voice...the only instrument made purely by the hand of God. All other instruments are types of that form. Many times, we praise the sound of instruments without realizing that our measuring of how good they sound is based on how closely they replicate the complexity and spectral variety of the human voice. Hence the praise, "Wow, you can make that thing really sing!"

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Why don't you write an ode to the human voice! I'd like to see it. Your point is well taken.