A girl carries a case 
 into dense
 old growth forest
 takes out a trombone
 attaches the mouthpiece
 
her first breath 
 is hesitant
 but she finds whispered
 rhythm in the wind through 
 the treetops
 
it begins to
 coalesce in her
 soon she is slurring notes
 playing blues
 in E minor
 
the deer don't get it
 they have their own rhythms
 but squirrels
 nod and begin
 to dance as they fill
 
secret hollows with hard 
 shelled acorns 
 groundhogs dig it
 beavers slap time with
 broad tails behind the beat
 
her first notes 
are hesitant
but she finds rhythm
in wind through the treetops
wavering
                        

George Wallington played 
in Dizzy's first bebop 
combo on 52nd Street
 
in 1960 he gave
up jazz, went home
to Florida, joined
 
the family business
installing 
air conditioners. Wendell
 
Marshall played with Ellington, 
Coleman Hawkins,
Milt Jackson, Gerry
 
Mulligan, gave it up,
went back to St.
Louis, started his own 
 
insurance agency. Teddy 
Charles played swing,
played bebop, played
 
the far out stuff, 
played with Miles, with
Mingus, with Wardell
 
Gray, gave it up
to get his captain's papers,
skipper a charter
 
skipjack on Long Island
Sound, then the Caribbean.
I’d go for that.
                        

But all stories are
lies and few 
if any have a point
and if they do
best not to trust them
 
take this one
with its half dressed woman
in the second
stanza offering
untold bliss
 
or the grime caked miser
who promises
mention in his will
for morphine
he’s in the third stanza
 
by the fourth you
you start to question
his motives
her fictive complaisance
you’re better off
 
listening to a
solo by
Dizzy Gillespie or
Charlie Parker
there’s truth in no words