Tuning: the Florence Band
Not yet our full attention yet something like hush
Priscilla is about to raise her baton
Then carve a beat into the unsuspecting air
Now for two measured hours this night
Each horn will slowly warm until
Nothing else matters but this sound
Edging closer to its Platonic form
By peg, slide, cork and neck
Listen now beneath the round
A note comes first through the fingers
Then the mind and last the heart listens
So willing each one of us
Disappears
a poem by John Nelson (tenor saxophone) xii.2017