Insignificance. Longevity.

Late in life I struggle against my insignificance
When I should enjoy the freedom from performance before an audience.
Applause is happiness but if they withhold applause, embarrassment.
When Da Liu put me to work crunching hexagrams and spreadsheet numerology
Instead of ghost writing his books about t’ai chi for longevity
I was humiliated but freed. No need to interpret
The Chinese master’s wisdom or endure his disapproval.
All this happened in an apartment on 110th St. when I lived on 111th.
I wonder if Da Liu lived to 100 like he predicted.

Ken got me that job, old friend Ken
Who goes back all the way past high school to Thompson Junior High.
Tomorrow we’re eating pizza together in Troy.
We’ll recall Da Liu and also the painter and sculptor who had a room
In our apartment on 111th and a dog so intelligent it could walk off the leash
On the crowded streets of New York without an altercation,
And Zach Sklar, of course, journalist, communist and jazz aficionado
Who listened to Jo Jones and Paul Quinichette, Count Basie’s men,
Often as possible at the West End.

Trying to make sense on the trumpet, I was playing the streets for quarters, not much more
Than that sculptor’s dog, the sculptor’s name I wanna say
Was Mike Johnson and he was a man of few words and many women.
We had a major cockroach problem in that apartment and
The ceiling leaked in Ken’s room so he organized the neighbors
Against the landlord, into a tenants association.
We went to our daily disciplines like children of paradise or Da Liu who was already old by then.
When we meet for pizza it will be hard to hear now that I’m deaf
In one ear and Ken, whose name means knowledge, has trouble remembering some of the ancient, past taboos and practices.

To want to be famous is a silly goal for a man almost old as Da Liu.
Not the right motivation, better to shift your glances so slowly as to go unnoticed,
Labor for the success and happiness of others.
I’m still avoiding the deeper question
So today I ordered Da Liu’s books, perhaps the ones I worked on,
Because they offer assistance to others for further living.
Service to others, maybe that’s the key.

I pleasure in and treasure my insignificance,
It ought to be a great comfort to be so insignificant,
Being knowledgeable is the best defense against your insignificance, the
I Ching puts me in mind of my insignificance, exiled or
Sidelined to an insignificant role, insignificant and mighty happenings
Seem the same from my vantage aging gratefully, inexorably,
A way to learn your insignificance, freedom to have never been.