I try to learn jam band

In a few weeks I will experience my first jam band concert thanks to my son who literally spends hours listening to guitar riffs and strumming the air with his fingers. As a writer, I find it hard to appreciate “song” without “lyric,” so once, when he was home from college, I watched a jam session with him on YouTube and asked him to explain it all to me. Of course I wanted some sort of form to assign meaning to what I was hearing. (This is just one of the curses of being an English teacher). My son just looked at me and shrugged. . . “It isn’t about that.”

Well, he may be right.

Thank you, Ben.

Photo by Alexandre St-Louis on Unsplash

I try to learn jam band

It’s that we’re unsure 
of the fifteen minute song,
such wait between
the leaving 
and returning—
we join with the first lyric
the poetic ache
each versed wish
before it gives way 
to the meanwhile, 
the slow slide 
to wilderness, 
the fear of what’s wordless—
and yet what we hear
is a beat percussing,
holding the groove 
of furied fingers
running across the taut
of threads, 
some scissored shreds 
that spawn 
the unleashing of keys
in its wild un-theme,
yet somehow in sync
with each plucked string—
before tension builds 
and the crowd leans 
for the unfold, 
the waking from a dream, 
a thump 
across the threshold—

and instead we’re tuned, 
to a story un-told,
when parts are lost
beneath chords
to song-raveled soul 
and what’s major 
becomes minor
as we succumb
to the jam

and find what matters 
is simply
the dance.