IN MEMORY OF BUTCH/ THE THIRD SOUND

No song is ever really good enough for love - I didn't really know the man,  but I know the marks he's made. Small pencil onto paper, small dash into the air, thumb print deep into the hearts of men and women who make sound. 

My father's friends are insects of business crossing New York City crosswalks, meeting on New York City corners, waiting in cafes. My father is a boy, bashful at the keys - no one will ever know that secret as I do - he is crying alone in some garage for everything that is beautiful.

You bring in the drums, you bring in the bells, you shake the metal, you set out foods across the table, the horns talk like birds, every metaphor is culled, again, this is the language - 

We un-ceremonial people who choose to make movements, who choose to pause, for peace, and honor, and misery, all larger than we think, all larger than we are built to bear. Every angel-person a composite of their tastes, mistakes, the moments they were captured.

You bring in the thumping, and then the wailing saw, and then the shakes, and then the voice, the looping bass, like a reminder. The little carrots, the dip, the pickles, and samosas.

Like my father I sometimes cry when alone and making things, not always believing in the things I make - but it is my way of shaking out the nectar, spreading out the pollen - this world needs beauty, beauty and sound - for there is knowledge in a sound that builds over time, ushering in whimpers, a veil that teases the room, skimming the linoleum, and all the dustball planks. 

All you birds darting through the crawl space - teach me how to make that racket. This is my love letter to an itching need to call back, and back, to bark, wade through myself, the little girl in braids, rolling in the travel quilt, swallowing in time, dark beneath piano-shade.

It is a painful ignorance, to hold in all the sound. One day I will burst, am bursting - could they ever know the volume of my bursting - it will waver like loons on the lake night, it will find your hospital room, it will join the buzz of the machines, shake against that other wave, and make a sound, a third.