All the Things You Are (Reimagined)

All the things you are aren't enough to forestall The crashing financial headaches Or late night battles over unused toothbrushes Unmunched lunches, lights not shut, surfaces not swept Or the existential morass surrounding the kid's sagging pants Even your "promised touch of springtime" can't protect us From the terrible job Leo did on the roof That caused the flood next to the garbage cans Which culminated in the tragic call to the roofer Who really and truly fell I wonder if I ever told you there was a time When ripping through the chord changes Of this old song afforded a guy a place of honor Among young jazzers How back then, Sam Furnace was my go-to pilot sitting next to me at the Henry Street Big band alto strapped to his side all the things He was achingly elegant, quiet, focused a study in fire Who could imagine that one day We'd attach those headphones to his fragile bluegrey Head five short months after the bad news Mobley, Griffin and Coltrane singing him Into the "breathless hush of evening from their golden bells Truth is, "Things" change And the song was never a favorite Just another river to flop around in Another impossible lawn made greener By someone else's eight notes Today when we were cooking oatmeal I heard Sonny Criss drive his Selmer Through the "Angel glow that lights a star" line And I marveled at the metaphorical power of stars How they rise above the bridges of all these old tunes Even glistening above our most tragic roofs And I wondered what star big Sam ended up on And whether or not he stuck with the Lamberson mouthpiece Or switched back to the Selmer C Star Opting for a slightly thinner line To thread a breathless heaven