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Coltrane, Syeeda’s Song Flute
- Wesleyan University Press
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The Child Jung ‘What will become of the boy?’ —his father “This stone is, was for ages, and will be: knows I know, and it’s good, hidden, hidden I’m a great old doctor, whirling, an eighteenth-century man whirling through the woods in a light green carriage, buckles on my shoes . . . Schoolboy! the filthiest boy ever made, or blessed . . . oh curled black shivering freak! O my stone God quicksand Eternity!” Coltrane, Syeeda’s Song Flute ‘When I came across it on the piano it reminded me of her, because it sounded like a happy, child’s song.’ —Coltrane To Marilyn, to Peter, playing, making things: the walls, the stairs, the attics, bright nests in nests; the slow, light, grave unstitching of lies, opening, stinking, letting in air pilgrims 93 you bear yourselves in, become your own mother and father, your own child. You lying closer. You going along. Days. The strobe-lit wheel stops dead once, twice in a life: old-fashioned rays: and then all the rest of the time pulls blur, only you remember it more, playing. Listening here in the late quiet you can think great things of us all, I think we will all, Coltrane, meet speechless and easy in Heaven, our names known and forgotten, all dearest, all come giant-stepping out into some wide, light, merciful mind . . . John Coltrane, 40, gone right through the floorboards, up to the shins, up to the eyes, closed over, Syeeda’s happy, child’s song left up here, playing. Photograph of Delmore Schwartz A young king, oak, painted and gilded, writing no one should be so unhappy, holding his hands out, 94 door in the mountain ...