for Henry Grimes

I have seen the stage lights play
the sly sagacity of Henry’s smile:
the lightning on his lips, decades
dark with spattered starlight

coming back to his eyes.
To win words from that smile
that opens like a jackknife
drawing blood from parchment,

spurting the sanguine melody
the black sage spun like spider
in fury wrapping Ayler’s axe
—it is a dream, unless the song

of ’66 wire its sound and touch
the new decade… Blade slices
again in air, olive wood in bloom:
I have seen it. He has indeed stood.