CARAVAN FOR GIL

OLD YAKIMA

            for Gilbert Chandler, 80

Just back from Detroit with a new camera,

talking to Gilbert, he says, I have an idea.

We'd go into six homes of the elders

and take some pictures. [We went

to 30 homes.] At the first house,

Gilbert says, Jim's going to take

some pictures and conduct some interviews.

[He hadn't said a word of this to me.]

With each family, someone would ask

where we'd been. Oh, you've been there?

Then tell us something we didn't hear

asking questions. Gilbert is old school.

He puts Black Yakima together like that,

through stories, weaving, what gets remembered.

            I love you so much, old friend.

            Jim

            9 August 2019

CARAVAN FOR GIL CHANDLER

            "I felt this was coming."

                        John Coltrane

We were a caravan of two in your truck.

The stories were one story.

The one story was many.

Driving Yakima, tracing roots,

Ronald to Cle Elum

into the mines. Mining Cle Elum

to that train pulling out of Louisiana.

New starts as strike breakers.

This is Duke Ellington, 1936.

Juan Tizol with him. There were lyrics

but they were never sung.

Duke on piano, Harry Carney and Billy Taylor.

Taking off from Hollywood, Clifford Brown, Dizzie, Monk.

All the way to Marsalis and us, in Standard Time.

Gilbert. So the kids will know.

The Jazzopators--

Dat, dat, dat, dat, daaaah.

dat, dat, dat, dat, daaah.

Gil Chandler.

Long slow history gathering it up

while driving for the city,

where there were jobs. Getting to know

streets and alleys. Who lived where.

Who kept this. Who threw out that.

Who knew who and all the music

coming through you.

Dat, dat, dat, daaah.

dat, dat, dat, dat.

That, then. That now, Gil Chandler.

Mrs. Navada Spearman at 100.

Who knew. Who knows. Who remembers.

Our famous names. Old Yakima. So many.

Esther Huey. Esther and Gil. Historians.

Phil Pleasant's neckbones. His hugs.

Don't give me no handshake.

Roho Shinda. Roho means spirit. Shinda overcomes.

Tanzy and Audrey Livingston.

Tanzy's beautiful hands.

Bruce Carter, Betty Lou Harris, Dorothy Yates.

The caravan.

And all the pictures we took.

Tanzy was 84 that day.

You're 80 now.

Everybody's riding with you.

Your head turned, listening.

That story. Every name

with a place in your story.

The name in the story--

more important than pictures on walls.

We all want to ride with Gilbert.

That story's a song, a caravan,

and Gilbert, you're the Duke.

Jim

3 August 2019