Elegy for Thelonious

By Yusef Komunyakaa

Damn the snow.

Its senseless beauty

pours a hard light

through the hemlock.

Thelonious is dead. Winter

drifts in the hourglass;

notes pour from the brain cup.

Damn the alley cat

wailing a muted dirge

off Lenox Ave.

Thelonious is dead.

Tonight's a lazy rhapsody of shadows

swaying to blue vertigo

& metaphysical funk.

Black trees in the wind.

Crepuscule with Nelly

plays inside the bowed head.

"Dig the Man Ray of piano!"

O Satisfaction,

hot fingers blur

on those white rib keys.

Coming on the Hudson.

Monk's Dream

The ghost of bebop

from 52nd Street,

footprints in the snow.

Damn February.

Let's go to Minton's

& play "modern malice"

till daybreak. Lord,

there's Thelonious

wearing that old funky hat

pulled down over his eyes.

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