Michael S. Harper - Here Where Coltrane Is lyrics

Here Where Coltrane Is Soul and race are private dominions, memories and modal songs, a tenor blossoming, which would paint suffering a clear color but is not in this Victorian house without oil in zero degree weather and a forty-mile-an-hour-wind; it is all a well-knit family: a love supreme. Oak leaves pile up on walkway and steps, catholic as apples in a special mist of clear white children who love my children. I play "Alabama" on a warped record player skipping the scratches on your faces over the fibrous conical hairs of plastic under the wooden floors. Dreaming on a train from New York to Philly, you hand out six notes which become an anthem to our memories of you: oak, birch, maple, apple, cocoa, rubber. For this reason Martin is dead; for this reason Malcolm is dead; for this reason Coltrane is dead; in the eyes of my first son are the browns of these men and their music.