The Newburghers

The Newburghers (A Jazz Talk in Six Parts - Dawn - Introduction Waking - Enter Von Newburgh Genesis - The Development Career - The New World Vision - Vision Dreams - Conclusion) Dawn The Realization Came like a dawn, Overall, For all eyes to see. What a word, is realization! Does it make its object real? No. It is wholly subjective; The near bridgehead, The essence, Of revelation. The broadest dawn it was. In ‘customed silence led, By invisible degrees advanced, And, like solar dawns, Ascribed to single moments, Somewhat past their inklings, Which astronomers then assign And historians debate. The realization, Like all dawns, Came not with the new light, But first, the fading of old stars. A sense of darking, Before the light. The sense of passing of our stars, On which all reckoning was built, Gave presentiment before light, And inner watch a pause. What is that sense, Not of the senses, Of impending realization? Night’s sands wiped from eyes? A momentary tickle? Perhaps to shunt from further notice? Having come unbidden? And unwelcomed? Perhaps an aeon of its own; An epoch in the twilight zone. Too brief are solar dawnings To give us to reflect. But an immense dawn, One unique, May well stage, first, A wondering. Such a pause was this. Swelling long, Disturbing thought, Before finally broaching it. The realization so great, Its foreboding was full summoning. Widespread anticipation, Eluding reason abstractly, And history, obliquely. And coming, None conceived it fullness, But all were swept along. And, like days’ dawns, Its light is not upon itself, But upon all that is seen. This, then, tells the story, Of the dawning and the dawn, And forecasts a zenith, For ours and all to come Now, metamorphosis - Realization advancing into day, And orphan men’s becoming Man.