All that has been still an undertone,
Frets of memory half-heard deep
Below a hybrid croon of saxophone

Or when King Oliver’s horn’s darker
Notes warn a plantation child
He’d die an obscure poolroom marker.

A Bushman taps a hunting bow,
One end humming between the lips,
Drone of sound mesmeric and hollow.

At wedding gigs East Europe’s blues
In moods of a harmonic minor scale
Blare a wistful klezmer rumpus.

Fingers strum a blown mukkuri
As swung against an Ainu’s hips
A song of peace plucks a tonkori.

Once Turk or Khan, Rome or Greece,
Empires now where suns never fall,
A dominant bringing a dominant peace.

But one space of chosen nodes,
Mediant world of both/and plays
In flexitime, in different modes?

Given riffs and breaks of our own,
Given a globe of boundless jazz,
Yet still a remembered undertone,

A quivering earthy line of soul
Crying in all diminished chords.
Our globe still trembles on its pole.

(From Globe)