Читать книгу Everything We Always Knew Was True - James Galvin - Страница 9

Bringing Down the House

When they tore down the auditorium

The facade went first, rebar snarling out like a

Nest of centipedes. When they tore down

The auditorium, excavators

And backhoes roamed like sci-fi mantises,

Munching with hydraulic jaws as they

Hunted and gathered and devoured. When they

Tore down the auditorium, percussive

Wrecking balls kept time

As I thought of years of arts performing magics.

I saw Baryshnikov twice. Heard Pavarotti,

Marsalis, and Ma, heard Bobby McFerrin, Bernstein,

The Kronos Quartet. The stage was a realm of light,

Sound, and dance. Applause came in tsunamis.

All in Iowa City, Iowa.

Then came the real flood. Mud took the stage,

Mold took a curtain call. They tore down the

Auditorium, but I remember.

Wynton Marsalis gave a master class

To three or four Iowa high school white-bread

Jazz combos. When Marsalis walked in they throttled

Their horns and saxophones, and who could blame them?

They jammed. He taught them to listen to one another

And respond. “Did you hear that B-flat I played?

Well why didn’t you do something about it?”

And, “You can’t get up on a stage then act

Like you don’t belong there.” He took questions. They had

A few shy ones. Then one girl, whose parents

Probably couldn’t afford that night’s performance,

Asked the best question ever: “Will you

Play something for us?” By way of answer

He laid down an impossible Dizzy Gillespie

Riff. A stunned silence forestalled the applause,

A silence such as that which overawes

The din of tearing down the auditorium.