GOSPEL FOR LENA

LINER NOTES FOR THE COMPILATION OF SONGS,

GOSPEL FOR LENA, 

SONGS FOR MY SISTER-IN-LAW’S CROSSING

Dear Chuck, sweet brother. 

These songs,the only thing I know. 

Lena and I talked music,

she liked jazz, here’s my list 

with no Miles. Lena liked Miles. 

Be sure, his back is turned,

and Lena’s smiling. How these songs 

got here, what I want you to listen for.

Gretchen wanted Amazing Grace. 

I get to pick the recording. 

Charles Lloyd has a 2-hour set 

for his mother crossing,

Lift Every Voice and Sing. Gretchen

will track her mother to paradise

if she finds all of it, 

and gives six months

to nothing but You’re So Beautiful.

Not here. What is here? Lena’s listening.

Listen, when your girls finished 

writing the obituary 

we took out every reference

to here, as in not here, substituting

earth for here, believing, in fact,

Lena’s presence. What a privilege

being in the room with your daughters,

fully adult, as they wrote,

Megan saying at one point, 

This seems like Dad’s paragraph—
the one detailing how Lena

kept football pools quarter by quarter

with prizes to keep up her own interest.

Dad’s paragraph, his call.

They wrote Glioblastoma out of our world.

Chuck, sweet brother, Coach of Our Valley,

good husband, best Dad, and Papa,

I’m getting warmed up, 

under the influence

of Megan and the way she 

led the gospel songfest

around Lena’s bedside. 

Cottage in the Meadow-hospice, 

blessed place for family.

When Megan and Julia led us  

singing Blessed Assurance,

everyone in the room became believers.

Iris DeMent learned 

the song from her mother,

who believed like Megan. Like you.

Iris DeMent comes from deep river country.

She sings from, and crossing, riverbanks

most of us have never seen. 

She’s here, twice.

Just because, just because. And for Megan.

Chuck, these lines aren’t testimony,

but a kind of code. When you hear 

Archie Shepp’s clarinet 

on My Lord, What a Mornin’

picture Julia taking out her violin,

playing for Nana’s crossing. Note, too,

there are two versions 

of What A Morning.

These, the most beautiful 

ever recorded. Charlie Haden, 

Hank Jones, Archie Shepp, Horace Parlan.

Hank Jones had this bone disease capable

of shattering the bones in both hands

simply by laying them on piano keys.

And Elvis? Aren’t we Justified

by our listening? I’m just about done,

but Marsalis and Clapton carry on

with Just A Closer Walk with Thee

for over 12 minutes. It’s here

for that drum solo. Those are kids

banging on pails and garbage lids.

They’re at the ball park 

watching you coach

during the closest of games. 

You’re on third base, working praise songs,

coaching Lena on the Bridge to Heaven.

You’re really coaching. 

As you said, I was.

There was never any doubt in the outcome.

Thanks for that walk, for permitting us

to be present, to be 

in the room with you and Lena.

The rest is easy. Gretchen reminded me

of Mavis Staples, how we listened 

one day on our way up the mountain.

42 years of marriage. 

Jackie Robinson’s number. 42 years. 

40 Days in the Wilderness. 16 Songs.

Chuck, I’ve always had to go  

through the City of No, 

to get to the Paradise in Yes.

Leonard Cohen sings through fire,

he’s King David creating 

the Psalter of Our Days.

The women in our lives, 

Karen and Lena,

like Ruth in the corn.

Wherever thou goest, turning tables on us.

Where they go, we go too.

Love,

Your brother,

Jim

22 August—1 October, 2014