For Eluard on his Birthday

                   By Lee Meitzen Grue

Dear friend, Aquarius,

this has been the most watery year

of all the watery years I’ve known you.

Forty days flood, night

blood in biblical proportion.

Astrologers consulted stars,

trembled as planets aligned,

called in dark the name we seldom call in light,

and the flute stood upright in the corner,

ears alert to your breath, the flute knows

nothing without your breath.

My own words hung listless

at the threat of no music,

thirsty children called for water,

and your own children stepped up older,

but your wife willed breath back into you.

There is power in love.

Remember the boy who played in barrooms?

The cheeky one who snagged Chuck Willis’ turban,

and cut Chuck on his own record

with a sax solo on C.C. Ryder that still won’t stop.

He’s gone now.  He’s sound,

the silken breath of Fez and Marrakech,

full throated

washes slowly, rolls back, until

some day distant, ends

with the dignity of a jazz dissolution,

on a grace-note

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Burt's funeral was beautiful.  Lots of people who care.— Lee

17 August 2007

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posted 18 August 2007