THE RETIRING OF SONNY ROLLINS

[A POEM I WROTE IN THE ANCIENT OF DAYS BUT HAVE NEVER INCLUDED IN A BOOK]

Sonny mounts the bridge and drives

The suicides beneath his keys to blow

The one sympathetic note that strikes the span senseless

Not retired but assumed into

The cable stitched heavens above

Neither sky nor sea

Flung out between radio snatching rails

To share that same ethereal gleam

Its antennaed supports plucking

Ambient overcast below

Prince over the powers of the air

Sonny sends

His winded tune skipping along arcs

Massively repeating the belled curve to

Towering horns seizing ships

Sonny sounds the altitudes

Where breath upholds the bridge

There he is tempted there reconciled

Concentrating within the exhaled pause sighs

Lapping darkly at piles recalling

Sonny to his drifting continent

Pads beneath his fingers fall

Upon that instrument that points to both

Here and there grounded waves

Roll in as Rollins

Descends Rollins

Resumes