The Singers
The jazz men of Grand Central Terminal
Gathered on the dirty edge of Park Avenue
Wearing the green-white guayaberas and some honeymoon sombreros.
Suddenly we have been interrupted at the last minutes our jokes
Because an old scholar of ours has asked to do so;
He wishes to sing a song he has written 90 years ago!
For a while we stood there watching his face.
The small eyes not even the shadow of a failure.
As far as I could see it he was right.
We're no longer young anymore!
But they shake their heads. "This our last chance
And you aren't sure what it was. The line of Living
And the line of being dead." As they're gazing over the bush land
With my old blue guitar who's gazing the Speaker
With whom they came to raise a question from a past with the tune
Of "Green Bridge where I go to die
Either I'll cry or flame myself by rage!"
Even as now I talk, in shake hands too, they do not listen.
And now and then, I see the reason, the handsome gull is growing
Old too but not the fight their own
And his voice was still sharp. Oh what a song!
Moment by moment, I look at him. Look strong,
Following each word well under the cloudless heart of ours.
"Who is singing the Guantanamera's song in English?"
Rise, manhood, for full grace, with fire in his eyes
Once were waved with age-tears. "I am, with the birds!"
He gazes at us, fascinated. Making a sound, when,
just as we are ready to explain this is not for him,
he turns back. Since we try to understand what happen,
I can see him walking away to 42nd Street, untouchable
by the wind. While us, like a group of kids
We are still playing on the mug.
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