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POEM: For McCoy Tyner

[McCoy Tyner at the 2013 Detroit Jazz Festival. Photo: Jason Crane.]

For McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner died today.
He was 81.
Honestly that surprised me;
I’d thought he was older.
Aren’t all masters ancient?
Or maybe timeless. Ageless.
Achieve a certain level of fluency
& you pass beyond the reach of the clock’s hands,
slip through Death’s grasping arms.
Now all four are gone: John, then Jimmy,
Elvin next, now McCoy.
A baby born tomorrow will never have
breathed the air at the same time
as any member of Coltrane’s classic quartet.
I wasn’t born when Trane died.
I was two when Jimmy left us.
Once I shook Elvin’s hand.
Another time I heard McCoy play.
McCoy Tyner died today.
He was 81.

/ / /

Jason Crane
7 March 2020
Tucson, AZ

Published in Jazz Music My poems Poetry

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