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Michael Simms: Strange Meadowlark
Although my father had perfect pitch
he said he hated music because when he was a boy
each time his mother emerged from the hospital
she’d sit and stare at the back garden,
then she’d slowly rise, go to the piano
and as her mania rose to a crescendo
she’d improvise long compositions
a neighbor once confused with Brahms.
Perhaps I can forgive my father for believing
children learn only through pain and humiliation.
Other than my grandmother’s improvisations
no music was allowed in our home.
Only much later did I succumb to Flash
who used to noodle the piano at a bar in Iowa City
allowing me to improvise poems as he played.
One night we broke into the college auditorium
and I listened to his Christmas Sonata performed
on a baby grand in the dark where I felt invisible and free.
Flash showed me how Brubeck uses 9/8, 6/4, 5/4 —
time signatures he learned from street musicians
performing folk songs in Istanbul. Eventually
Paul Desmond’s Take Five in 5/4 became my anthem,
a beautiful ear worm I still hear whenever words fail me.
One evening I was listening
to Brubeck’s Strange Meadowlark
thinking how 1959 changed music forever
with Time Out, Kind of Blue, Ah Um
and The Shape of Jazz to Come
and how at the age of five I spoke my first words
but my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth
so every word sounded like arrr, warrr, jarrrrr,
how years later jazz, a free communal experience
embodying love, saved me just as poetry saved me.
When my father called
without identifying himself
saying simply I’m sorry
I responded Why? What have you done?
Nothing nothing he said I’ve done nothing
I’m just calling to say I’m sorry for everything
I had to decide whether to say what I thought
of him, child abuser, chief tormenter
I’d spent my entire life trying to recover from,
or whether to forgive this dying man.
I took a deep breath and said Listen
when we were growing up we had food
on the table and a roof over our heads, you always
had a job, you didn’t beat my mother, your kids
got as much education as they wanted. You did alright.
I know lots of fathers who didn’t do as well
When he went on to talk about a few of his abuses
against me, I minimized his crimes.
I was lying of course but we both knew he was dying
and I didn’t want to send him off thinking I hated him
although I did and I found something surprisingly transcendent
about telling a difficult lie out of kindness. Which made me think
of Ornette Coleman playing a Grafton saxophone
a cheap plastic instrument that flips
between dullness and harshness,
a novelty, a toy, not a serious instrument
but somehow Ornette makes the toy sing.
He creates harmony movement melody
free of any tonal center just as I had no center
for many years until I forgave my father
but then I began to miss my hatred of him,
that hole occupying the center of me for so long.
After my parents died the family gathered
beside the Llano River behind their house
where the current descends rapidly over the limestone shelf.
I held in my hand a few words of praise for my parents
but the words wouldn’t form. My tongue
stuck to the roof of my mouth.
I slurred a few words before nodding to my brother
who poured the ashes on the rapids as I heard
the soulful celebration of Take Five take to the air
~~~~
Copyright 2023 Michael Simms. From Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023). First published in Asheville Review.
Michael Simms is the Founding Editor of Vox Populi and the Founding Editor Emeritus of Autumn House Press.
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This poem moved me, a masterpiece! It’s just a pity it’s too long, otherwise I’ll translate it into Chinese, my endurance is not as good as before. I wonder how I translate so many long poems, pound, ashbery. Make a mark first, maybe I will have the day when my strength recovers.
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Thank you so much, Yongbo. You are doing important work translating American poets into Mandarin. I am very grateful to you.
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Poetry and music make everything happen. Bravo.
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Thank you, Alfred. Your praise means a great deal to me.
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Why does it seem so difficult to forgive our imperfect parents? Maybe memories linger behind those words of forgiveness, memories that color us as adults. Thank you, Michael, for this fine poem.
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Thanks, Mandy.
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I’m so moved by this poem, Michael. To be saved by jazz and poetry. How difficult and glorious it is to be alive.
“I was lying of course but we both knew he was dying
and I didn’t want to send him off thinking I hated him
although I did and I found something surprisingly transcendent
about telling a difficult lie out of kindness.” ❤️
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Thank you so much, Lisa.
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There is nothing new I can add to the comments. Each one in its own way reflects my feelings about this extraordinary poem full of humanity and wonderful lines and – of course – wonderful jazz. I have only one complaint: After years of having been able to leave it behind me, TAKE FIVE has just re-entered my brain. Brubeck has accompanied me through a very beautiful and very difficult time in my life. Thank you for this poem, Michael. It made me rethink a few things.
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Thank you, Rose Mary. Your comments in this space are always spot on.
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Michael, when I first read this poem in the book I immediately went to Brubeck & played Strange Meadowlark. Brubeck & Desmond pushed the boundaries and were brave, but brave in far safer ways than the bravery shown in this poem/in the life it relates. This is an expansive poem, and thanks for it: it resonates for me deeply.
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Thank you so much, Jerry. Your work is a shining example of craft and insight.
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Fearless. It’s the word that comes to mind first, when I read your poem, Michael. To live without harboring hurt; to write like Flash plays, in a way that invites us in. To model love for someone who never figured it out.
Deep thanks for sharing this.
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Thank you, Louise. I admire your work so much, your praise is a blessing.
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Michael: This is such a fine poem and remembrance. I love its trajectory and destination. Whatever is right and wrong between you, it never kept you from that fostering of essential, needful things in the world. How do we arrive into our roles? My father was abused, lived within harsh bounds with his father and that won me one of the kindest and most generous parents anyone could hope for. So it stopped with him and it stopped with you and you are not only a blessing to our world, but a wonderful, perceptive and gifted poet.
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Thank you, Sean. I admire your passion and vision so much.
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This is such a real & moving poem in this Season of Forgiveness. Thank you!
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Thank you, Meg. You are so gifted.
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I grew up with Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson in the background, courtesy of my father. I was blessed with a father who loved me unconditionally, my mother less so. I’m moved that you found it in yourself to forgive your father, ‘telling a difficult lie out of kindness’. May jazz and poetry continue to heal and save you Michael.
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Thank you, Jan.
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My late husband kept the house full of Brubeck and Burrell and hundreds of CDs and records of Jazz greats and yes, they are connected somehow to pain and love and loss and parents and letting go and silence.
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Yes
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loved the poem
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Thanks, Barbara!
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Here’s to jazz fathers!
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Yeah!!!!
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and late jazz husbands, sigh
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So many beautiful lines…of music (life and its odd time signatures!) and painful memory given flight: “harmony movement melody/free of any tonal center…”, “where the current descends rapidly over the limestone shelf”—your poem has perfect pitch but not at the expense of soulful feel. “Strange Meadowlark” is an ars poetica, too. I needed this poem this morning. It made me feel again something I’d rather keep at arm’s length but is part of me. A poem of kinship.
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Thank you, Adam!
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Heartfelt thanks for this composition: for the jazz beats of your music and reconciliation. Thank God, you didn’t drown in the rapids and maelstrom of tempos, but now bring us love and inspiration.
And a shout out to Brubeck and Flash, wherever in this universe they may be.
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Thanks, Jim. I lost touch with Flash many years ago. I wonder if he is still making his music somewhere.
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I sent your poem to a musical friend and got this interesting response:
Thanks for the poem. I love that tune, Strange Meadowlark. My son in law, the jazz pianist, would especially appreciate that he identified Take Five as a Paul Desmond, rather than Dave Brubeck, tune. He is a huge Desmond fan – not so much Brubeck for some reason. I guess he does not consider him one of the most innovative jazz pianists. I bought an Ornette Colman album when I was in high school and listened to it over and over much to the puzzlement of my buddies. Can’t say I ever figured out exactly what he was getting at, but I find now that some of his compositions are considered standards.
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What an interesting response, Jim. Thanks for posting it.
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Yes, soul cleansing is a perfect description. I love this poem!
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Thank you, Jan! I so appreciate your presence on these pages.
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Wow! What a stunning poem, Michael! You have captured so much of a Life and it’s suffering, and the art that makes it bearable and livable within the art of your own poem! I truly love this.
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Thank you, Mary. I wrote this poem two years ago and yet it still feels very raw.
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By the way, Kim said she’d send me a review copy of your new collection when it comes out from Madville. Looking forward to reading it.
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That’s great!!! If you’d like, I can send you n an ARC now.
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Okay, Send it by attachment to this address: simmsahp(at)gmail(dot)com
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Ditto to what Margo wrote. Soul-cleansing. Thank you, Michael!
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Thanks, Terry. I’m a big fan of your work as well.
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A soul cleansing. Perfect for the season and for the season of humans all…who need forgiving. Yes. all.
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Thanks, Margo. Big fan of your poems as well.
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