Lay for the Day 10th June

The master trombonist Dickie Wells was born on this day in 1907 in Centreville, Tennessee.

Trombone

The echoes of laughter, prone to enter
among my downturned notes and bending sighs,
deflect the gloom of dry soliloquy.
We’ll talk in a tone with no chuckle barred.

Others have tongues of fire. Mine that’s earthen
comes dripping up from the well, is given
to telling of stories, however lu-
gubrious, which bubbles of wit will break.

Would a body soar abroad, so long an
implement to hand? Yes say the painters
of heaven, where even in the presence
cherubim relish the sliding of me.

John Gibbens
from Septet

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