Ever wake up at dawn to the sound of a bird chirping outside your window? This morning was one of those times for me. My eyes opened slowly, naturally and I heard a bird chirping. I thought about what a nice moment that was. And for some reason, my next thought was a line I had heard somewhere before. The line was “ever heard Bird flap his wings?” That line echoed in my head, and then I thought: Okay. Where have I heard it before? Where? Then I remembered. That was a line—actually two lines—from a poem about saxophone player Charlie Parker, who was also called Bird by his legions of fans.
I knew I had a copy of the poem somewhere; because I’d
used it with several other poems in Conversations
about Jazz Poetry, a public event I conducted a few years ago. Remembering where I’d filed those poems, I
decided that a poem whose lines had echoed in my head after I awoke to the
sound of a bird chirping outside my window, deserved to be pulled out of file
and reread. My intent was to pull it out
after I poured my usual morning cup of coffee.
With my cup of coffee in one hand, I located my
hardcopy jazz poetry file with the other hand and pulled out the poem, which
turned out to be “Mellowness & Flight,” by George Barlow. And the lines that had haunted me in a good
way at dawn turned out to be:
Ever
heard Bird
flap his wings
Those two lines begin and end the 19-line poem. The poem compares Charlie Parker to:a bright blackbird slicing blue sky
There’s no punctuation in “Mellowness & Flight.” A few well known standard songs in Charlie
Parker’s discography are mentioned as examples of the musician’s mellowness. The bird-in-flight metaphor is used to
describe Parker, and it asks us readers/ listeners if we’ve ever felt like we
were flying with him.
***
Drinking my morning cup of coffee and rereading
“Mellowness & Flight” have put me in a mellow mood. And thoughts the poem have inspired in me
have gotten my day off to a flying start.
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