Improvisation

I’m not going to talk anymore, I’m going to sit here in the September
Haystack sun and play my flute and not speak, not a word.
I’ll be a sunshine man in this all blue September day, the sky
blue, the sea blue, all around blue except of course evergreens
and avocado-rind green blue spruce, saw-edged against sky blue
sea and sea blue sky. “Sweet Jesuz,” a friend says over my shoulder,
“I am old,” crooning it a way that doesn’t sound like dying but shines
just like the steptop sun silver Haystack deck, only not a word—
I’m not saying a one. I sit atop the stackhay decklong flights of stairs
above the sea, high as osprey circling this topstep Sun, improvising
my blue Indian flutesong, two flags snap-snapping in seachop wind
like the shoe rag in a black man’s hands I was jealous how he made sing,
just the way my friend who said “Sweet Jesuz” made the word old
sing like silver deckboards here in the Deer Isle morning. No, I’m not
talking anymore, I’ll be the shine man, snapping his September rag
on my yellow birch flute, Sun so bright day goes white down the long and
open, silver Haystack stairs, improvising Sweet Jesuz, sing! who be old.

Martin Steingesser

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
30 September 2000

First published in Rattle
Copyright © 2000 Martin Steingesser