"ODE TO ERIC" for Eric Dolphy   a poem by Geno Foreman


ODE TO ERIC


The innocent abroad, the unattached wanderer, lost in finding himself alone in his musing and skyrocket sonic creations of love.

How Everest-like the humblest of his conceptions would seem if comprehended searchingly by the lost and lonely homeland student of art and the lives of greats.

How timely the meditative and analytical care
that was taken in the dialectical fantasies and far-reaching intellectual ponderings of his beloved scales.

Where/when ever his pathfinding panegyrics oded
overwhelmingly brave in their fathomable fearlessness in the face of barely tolerable gumchewing drunks.

For the listeners who could hear him, he told of the trials of yesteryear in the total-tomorrow language
of a lonely bird bound outward in the still night.

The solemn sorrowful sufferingly sound belief
of those hearers whence came his sane strong sound
of great and powerful love for them and their sleeping song.

Hugh Quin Foreman, 1965
For Eric Dolphy