Tuning: The Florence Band – A poem by John Nelson

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