Sunday, March 28, 2021

For Emily

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









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