Something About Soul (for Alice Coltrane)

It hangs^
The way they spoke of her hair
some 20 odd years long,
still not yet stale.

I heard she was a mad woman
in that cool, blue-thang kinda way.

I've heard of her husband...
She does not care

Or would not, I don't know her.

Oh, and I heard she was from Detroit.
Now that I believe

... Woodward in the low, fickle winter sun
Not ash,
Or burgundy,
smoke from burning houses where the help don't come
or chartreuse-

In harmony with all that jive,
but funny She don't sound like It.

They told me she played church music,
Reel religiouslike
simple understanding,
"grace"

Tran(sc)e-ndence

But the explanation,
where words fail to
form tones of celestial divinity
bound by cycle-
hangs.

I heard
She was gifted in her own right.
Found a way to-
give off light,
I cried to myself
choking down coffee and cold hashbrowns.

... And believed again,
the idea that

the Prodigal son had a mother.

And of-
warm blacktop daze
in our cars
in church parkinglots-

... And not quite 20 years ago I was put back into that cold water.
And didn't they know that I thought that was weird?!

.

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-... .- .--. - .. ... -- / .. ... / .-- . .. .-. -..


 ...?

.

They don't really care what I think either.
~ That's what they tell me anyway,

I heard she was crazy.