This is a poem I wrote last year in honor of my favorite jazz guitarist, Emily Remler. I wrote it after I watched an interview where she talked about how hard it was to be a woman trying to earn respect in the jazz world. She died tragically young at the age of 32 in 1990 from opioid addiction. Yet, we still have all the music she made in her short time here.
"For Emily"
A weighted hold
But strong
A crisp string in a sharp morning
Waiting for the sound
The sliding geometry
To suture a song
Something still, something whole
You reach out your hand
And an E Major chord reaches back
The crescendo rises and the 12 bars begin
Again
Pulling a shard
From the cosmic consciousness
You shatter it into
Time and Melody
But it wasn't enough—the hold
Only metal under skin
A sharpness to dim the quiet
Raging and building through a scale
For the eyes in the dark, always asking
Demanding
Your instrument like a sword
The sound your shield
It wasn't enough
The crescendo crashes
And the screaming begins again
Waiting for the next bar
That never comes
In the embers of sedation
Free
To ride the chorus like a wave
As a woman in sound
Reaching out
To the silence
Where it finally
Reaches back
