He sings as Glenn Gould sang with Bach, eyes closed, head thrown back, his voice high above the highest keys though he’s a big man, reaching across to his brother pianist who understood melody and harmony, too, as few do now when the important things have mostly been forgotten, when the bassist doesn’t know how to add one voice to another. Tonight we’re sitting up front by the stage where we can see what the musicians do with their hands and faces, the band leader twisting his mouth this way and that before he fits the trumpet to his lips, the drummer staring into who knows where, could be playing for himself or maybe God. Some distances are easier to cross than we think, at least when the piano’s in tune and Ron’s playing Monk like Monk’s his patron saint—he doesn’t have to wait till his bones mingle with the dust, he can talk with the guy simple as crossing the river on his way home from the bar in the early morning, rain making the river rise under the bridge.
Susanna Lang divides her time between Chicago and Uzès, France. Her most recent chapbook, Like This, was released in 2023 (Unsolicited Books), along with her translations of poems by Souad Labbize, My Soul Has No Corners (Diálogos Books). Her e-chapbook, Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, (Mudlark: An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics) was published in 2021. Her third full- length collection of poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published in 2017 by Terrapin Books. Her poems, translations and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such publications as The Common, december magazine, Asymptote, Tupelo Quarterly, American Life in Poetry, Rhino Reviews, Mayday and The Slowdown. Her translations of poetry by Yves Bonnefoy include Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, and she is now working with Souad Labbize and Hélène Dorion on new translations. More information available at www.susannalang.com.
