Bluebird fire

why I hate and love drum solos

It is wrong to be
a drummer and not
want to hear a solo,
but I am and I don’t 
unless the drummer 
plays as if lifting a song 
between two chopsticks 
while propelling a dancer 
from limb to limb
as each footfall
instigates the sound
of leaves rattling 
underfoot from on high.

Maybe I chose the wrong 
instrument all those years ago. 
I should have chosen
felted piano or mbira, 
shakuhachi flute or
a bossa nova voice.
I should have studied
falling water instead
of thunder and the sound
of buckets being dropped,
but even soft music
can get overtaken
by athleticism so I can’t
blame volume for this 
overwhelming solo.
Even quietly, we can
still forget the reason
we came here, which
was what again?

Maybe I’m just afraid
of drum solos or any 
solos, someone spouting 
off seemingly endless 
knowledge at the level
of the 32nd and 64th note. 
It’s intimidating to know 
so little when they know
so much, because isn’t 
knowledge everything 
and meanwhile
my focus drifts
from the shredding soloist 
slaying us with nine 
stroke rolls under
a blitz of cymbal crashes 
to the smell of cedar,
the taste of almonds, 
a phone buzzing,
the bill I forgot to pay. 
I lose the solo
before I blame it
and the drummer
for dragging me here.

Musicians will say
a soloist “killed it”
and this one might have, 
but I wandered off
and got lost the way
I was lost yesterday
when I opened the door
of the wood stove
to find a bluebird
resting dead on the grill
in the firebox,
its brilliant blue
feathers the same blue
of every flame carried
by the stove before it.
The brown and white 
accents gave way
to a tiny black eye,
a small stone cast upward 
whose final vital moment 
of sight faced a void
of cast iron on three sides 
and what must have been 
confusion on the fourth - 
door glass exposing
the world beyond,
now smeared and smudged 
by the last percussive
strike of beak and claw.

I am filled with sadness
as I imagine the solitary 
encore, a wild chirping 
song reverberating through 
the same metal chimney 
this beautiful bird
fell down, singing
to those above,
to the world beyond 
the glass or to itself, 
just to ease something 
not known but felt
or intuited or heard, 
just to declare life 
for as long as it lasts.