Rise Up And Ride

~ to celebrate Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his 100^thbirthday

We gather
We gather around
and while around We gather
We reflect in the moment
Our reflections remotely interior
reflections that ripple on our surfaces
with experience and emotion
expectation going unspoken
passing traumas unconfessed
tattooed on every cell of blood
that roams the living heart
teased by inner drums
to dance

We gather
We gather around
and while We gather
Our reflections speak
riffing off Our rippling shores
through Our interior drumbeats
and Our drumming fills the space
with that intricate ostinato called
Our Shared Humanity

The Prophet
softly approaches
reading the crowd
feeling the bed of drums
and the spaces between each beat
the World of hurt and of love
the crashing of the seas
the winds of time
motes of the dust of an hundred years
—and more, perhaps—
bounce in the City Lights,
and out of the depths
of these waiting primordial rhythms
he speaks

Friends, Poets, Countryfolk,
quothe he,
There is nothing I can say
that you are not breathing right now
into the outermost continuities of space
—Our collected vibrations are heavy
their mass carries weight yet gives light
unto those of us who are trapped in the night
the collective sighs of We gathered Here
join with those of a Nation and a World
clamoring to settle into any groove
that will kick the beat forward

I say to You
“Kick it forward”
and I’m not talking about any can
but can-do
though any can will do
and be suffered to be cycled
and can be recycled
if you will
into the latest new case for Now

Because Pandora opened the can
all that spilled out is a reckoning
that can only be assuaged
in the timeless Era of Jazz
in the balm of the Beat
in the work of weaving

among hearts heaving
in the joy of healing
in the heat of the night

I say it again
“Kick it forward”
and that means You
You’ve got to swing into the groove
of that bed laid in long ago,
now is the time for listening
to hear rags and blues glistening
in singing and dancing
with canons and fugues
that RISE UP

Round while We gather
be here and hear, Dears,
hear the beating of All Your Drums
gather your precious song of Humanity
Kick it all forward into your swing
and into it find your groove;
join the ostinato traffic lane
and enter the wave dancing
RISE UP
and once arisen
RIDE!

© 2019 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

The First Day of the Last...

Today is the First Day of the Last Year of My First Half Century.

And, it is Sunday. So I was in church. But not my own.

I spent this Sunday over at St. John's Presbyterian Church, on College Avenue in Berkeley. By invitation, I was singing a Jazz Mass, composed by Todd Jolly, the music director there. I've worked with Todd for several years now, while a member of the San Francisco Renaissance Voices, of which he is musical director. Today's service music was from Todd's Mazz, plus a few companion anthems that he also composed. This wonderful piece is somewhat of a precis of the history of jazz.


I had a great time! Can't think of a better way to spend the morning of my birthday! Doing something I had never done before. Todd had written the piece about ten years ago, and bits of it had been done, but not the piece in its entirety. So, this day was culmination for Todd and his work. And, there we were, jamming with a fabulous combo on the dais at St. John's, sharing in the gift of creation.


It was a full circle, with an awakening to something new.


I had lived in Elmwood during my childhood years. The church, new back then, was a community center for us; my Brownies and Girl Scouts troops met there. I went to Emerson School, up the street, and lived around the block on Derby. Years later, I would rehearse on Monday nights with the Pacific Mozart Ensemble. Today, things are much the same, though different and older, in this neighborhood. Yesterday, I had lunch at the Elmwood Cafe, with one of my colleagues, and was thrilled that the old fountain counter was still there, though they no longer serve up burgers and shakes, and though the Elmwood Pharmacy that the fountain had been a part of has been gone for the longest time. After lunch, I ambled up and down the street a bit. The boutiques were all buzzing with shoppers, and people were jay walking to get from here to there. There was the general bustle of life happening. That is the part that hasn't changed or aged.


Although I have sung some jazz before, and even jazz oratorios, I had never sung a complete jazz mass. I loved it. The experience was one of life happening.

I am no preacherwoman, but one non-scriptural line pops into my head that seems as perspicacious to theology as any text from the bible. This line is from Auntie Mame (the 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis). Mame Dennis says to Agnes Gooch:

Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!

This is it, isn't it? This is the essence. All the sages and prophets say this same thing, though differently. Life is already a banquet. Just wake up and be there, in the flow of things, where life is happening.

And that is what this morning was like for me, on the first morning of the last year of my first half century.

Awakening to something new.

Joining the feast.

Being where life is happening.

Sweet!