To see and believe
in the jazz animal, the cat born
of good darkness and true tone,
is to understand that what we know
is not always explicable.  

To see it crouched
in music on a Saturday night
is not scary, not exactly —
but in the moment of its spring toward target
there may be an apprehension

or concern as to how
the moment after it lands a solid blow
will reflect a complete change in the nature
of our world.  To accept the jazz animal’s
silence in the midst of skeins of sound —

to see in the jazz animal
the bed and backstory of what possibility
music is and holds dear — 
you have to suspend for a moment
your urbanized scoffing at such an explanation

for how you might sit transfixed
after a fill or a run by any or all
of these few instruments on stage —
you have to agree that in that moment,
you’re under the paw of something 

that is older than human, cleaner
than simple entertainment, more surefooted
than you are, certainly.  Have you never seen
a cat make an impossible leap of pure faith?
How can you not acknowledge the jazz animal?