Three or Four Shades of Blue

Those four pilots turned it on, took off like that, their music stretched, or really beating, hunting: Charles Mingus’ vowel sounds

so round they’d haunt like owls, Bird and Diz, two pelicans, their harmonies quick fish scooped deep in beaks, and then Thelonious

who swooped from sills to chimneys, wires to streets. . . . They turned it on as if it were a hydrant which, shut off, still dripped, evaporated,

showered someplace else, spilled into lakes. . . . Lakes are good for pontoons, also ducks which taste spectacular with string beans,

red potatoes, berry wine. And those four carved it into quarters, used its wishbone for a tuning fork, fastened bright green feathers

to melodies and flew. Diz flew furthest, 1/6/93, then he went too. I miss his famous cheeks, those DC-l0’s. One filled with Bop. One, Latin Jazz.

I miss his belly, his triangle goatee. But mainly I miss hoping that while he soared the others trailed along, a wake, the second line.

At night I count off constellations I have mapped and named for each, count Dizzy’s last. It’s less familiar, takes me extra time to find.

I need to linger on his Thank-You longer still, a final note I fold into an airplane, then let go: Buenas noches, John Birks Gillespie. Rest well.

Selected works by Rob Carney:

• • Three or Four Shades of Blues

• • Lester Leaps In

• • Tune Up/When Lights Are Low