Counting out the dead is like a jazz drummer counting out time,
the emptiness, blankness, and static,
that dead space between the beats is measured too.
The list grows longer with silences and absences,
and yet my beard still grows, and my hair still grays,
and the night still looks the same.
Counting the silence is like looking at something
during the witching hour at the new moon.
You see it clearer if you look away.
The whiteness in the dark becomes rocks,
or bones, or long forgotten desires,
or ghosts,
but if you name it and look directly at it,
it fades back into the murky darkness.
There has been a flood, an upheaval, and everything has been uprooted.
Nothing is familiar anymore; even the river has changed course.
River rocks lie bleached white by the sun,
and what was once the river is a green pool
slowly evaporating to nothing in the August heat.
There is no reason that I am here and they are gone,
except for the fact that I am here and they are gone.
We all ride that current down to the sea at some point,
but what did we do on the shore while we waited for the boat?
What did you do in boredom in the middle of a full moon
in summer in the middle of your life?
The list grows longer with silences, and fewer are not on the list.
The improvisation shifts and the tune becomes sparser,
there are longer bridges for a lonesome trumpet.
It becomes less like a song and more about the
emptiness.
