Those Troubling Obscenities of Saxophones

“He heard the rhythmic troubling obscenities of saxophones.”
~William Faulkner, Soldier’s Pay

I met Wayne Shorter in a dream
somewhere in a sunny club,
light pouring through the windows,
bouncing off the beach,
slinging diamonds off each
cresting wave. He smiled,
picked up his tenor
and started playing Footprints,
the repetition of the riff
becoming a prayer, notes
blending with the waves, the
rhythm becoming a chant,
the shore a sunny temple
where laughing monks refused
to let me wake.

When was I taught that the world was profane?
That a saxophone and the sound of
surf pounding wasn’t holy enough?
The monks nudged me, saying wake!
Embrace the rhythm, the troubling
obscenities, the sound of Footprints on the shore.
Wayne smiled and began to chant softly,
and then I was chanting as I came back
to the world, saxophones filling my head,
slowly unpacking what I thought was profane.

Gene Hyde lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His writing and photography have appeared in such publications as Appalachian Journal, The Banyan Review, Raven's Perch, Valley Voices, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, and Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene.