digital artmerge: ralph murre
Mostly Basie with a
Little Bach
by
Donal Mahoney
Whenever
I see a new woman, I know
I
should look at her hair and her eyes and her smile
before
I decide if she's worth the small talk
and
the dinner later
and
whatever else she may require
before
she becomes taffy,
pliant
and smiling.
But
that never works for me.
Whenever
I see a new woman,
what
matters to me is never
her
hair or her eyes or her smile;
what
matters to me is her saunter
as
I stroll behind her.
If
her moon comes over the mountain
and
loops in languor, left to right,
and
then loops back again,
primed
for another revolution, then
I
introduce myself immediately
no
matter where we are,
in
the stairwell or on the street
and
that's when I see for the first time
her
hair and her eyes and her smile
but
they are never a distraction since
I'm
lost in the music of her saunter.
Years
ago, tall and loping Carol Ann
took
a train to Chicago
found
a job and then one summer day
walked ahead
of me on Michigan Avenue
while
I surveyed her universe amid
the cabs
screeching, horns beeping,
a
driver's middle finger rising.
Suddenly
she turned and said hello
and
we shook hands and I saw her smile
dart
like a minnow and then disappear
as
she frowned and asked
why
was I walking behind her.
I
told her I was on my way to the noon Mass
at
Holy Name Cathedral and she was welcome
to
come along. The sermon wouldn't be much,
I
said, but the coffee and bagels afterward
would
be plentiful, enough to cover lunch.
And
Jesus Christ Himself would be there.
She
didn't believe me, not at all,
and
she hasn't believed me since.
That
was thirty years ago and now
her
smile is still a minnow
darting
here and there but now
it's
more important than her saunter
which
is still a symphony,
mostly
Basie with a little Bach.
And
I no longer traipse Michigan
Avenue
as
I did years ago looking for new moons
swirling
in my universe. Instead,
I
take my lunch in a little bag
on
a long train from the suburbs
and
I marvel at one fact:
It's
been thirty years since I first heard
the
music in her saunter
and
Carol Ann and I are
still
together, praise the Lord.
Who
can believe it? Not I.
Carol
Ann says she knew
the
ending from the start.
Lord,
Almighty. Fancy that.
~
first published in Eye on Life Magazine
