Still Listening

 

The night air was delightfully crisp, yet still warm. The moon shone in its waning crescent brightly all around the woodsy area, the stars brilliantly twinkling in a velvet sky. Other houses’ lights  along the river shone merrily, reflected in waving ripples as the water passed. The frogs and crickets chirped in the night, leaving me smiling and remembering similar, though more pleasant summer nights on the river.

                As everyone mingled in the riverside house, swirling their drinks and discussing other family who were absent, I felt myself taken over by an inexplicable restlessness. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew that I was really sick of having to make small talk with all my aunts and uncles and whiney cousins, especially after the embarrassingly dramatic confrontation between two younger cousins that I attempted to mediate, but soon became lost in all of their fallacious arguments and blew up myself. My mom hadn’t been impressed with what she called my lack of maturity about the whole affair, and made no bones about letting me know how she felt. Now, excusing myself from the room, making sure that my mom didn’t see me leave, I stepped out onto the back deck. 

                Suddenly, piercing the night air, a lone saxophone played a somewhat familiar tune. I was intrigued; was someone standing out on their porch, like I was, enjoying the night air and disturbing everyone else with his or her saxophone? Except, I didn’t think it was disturbing at all. I kind of liked it.   After a moment or two of still listening, I realized the tune that the saxophone was playing was “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” My cousins were cavorting around the backyard’s fireplace, playing freeze tag or throwing rocks into the river. The sounds of their merriment didn’t detract at all from the music, and I thought it was amusing that I hadn’t even noticed them for nature and the music of the saxophone. Making sure that none of my cousins saw me, I crept down the stairs of the deck and through the tall grass next to the riverbank and made my way towards the sound of the playing.

                I was fairly sure that the player was on my side of the river, because as I swiveled my head around, that seemed to be where it was coming from. I pushed my way through the flora, my feet remembering the paths I and my cousins had explored by day. The song came over and over again, and I could hear it getting louder. My heart thudded, but I wasn’t embarrassed that I was seeking out the player. The gospel of the music was calling me, and I hardly had room in my head for reason or social niceties or even embarrassment. The dark night even made it feel appropriate.

                As I walked, I thought about the song. I remembered how I had heard once that it was a spiritual sung by black slaves that was really a message to other slaves about escape and rescue from their plight. Well, that’s me. I thought. I need a little bit of saving right now. 

                Finally, I pushed through a large clump of trees and to a small clearing right by the bank, making a nice, grassy little beach. A perfect picnic area, and a good place, it seemed, to camp out with a saxophone at night. As I shoved the branches away, I could see the silhouette of the player against the reflections of the water. He didn’t stop playing as I stepped through the trees, and he didn’t miss a beat. I just stood there and listened. He was following Swing Low’s melody, but in jazzy tones and with swoops, improvised ornamentations and lovely little riffs off of it, yet always swinging in to catch the melody right on time. I stood for a moment, listening to the smoothness of the saxophone serenading the night, reflecting in its sound the smoothness of the river. The player, in a prolonged and vibrating note took one hand off the instrument and indicated a stump near me where I could sit. I sat, and just listened. 

                The player never deviated from that one tune, but kept rolling it out, over and over again, a personal worship to nature’s God. The sweet summer smells around me and the crickets and frogs made the time that much better, and I knew that I was doing a good thing by being here.   I stopped worrying about my mom disapproving of my leaving, I didn’t worry that they would miss me back at the house, I didn’t worry about what time it was. All I heard was gospel in the music, the gift of a beautiful song in a place not built by human hands, surrounded by powers that humans had no control over, a song of worship, and longing. I felt that longing, and every sound of high notes swooping down to lower ones made me envision a chariot sweeping from heaven and bearing me and the player away. 

                We sat there for a long time, me drinking in the music like the clearest water, and the player just making the music. The moon moved across the sky, but still the player’s silhouette never changed. The light reflected just right so I couldn’t see his face or even a profile, but that was ok. When the dew began to settle, I began to be a little chilled and once more taking a hand off of his saxophone he handed me a soft jacket, which I pulled around my shoulders, and he kept playing.

                At last, after playing once more through the song, he pulled the saxophone from his lips, took apart the instrument and packed it away in a case near his feet. I stood, took the jacket off and handed it to him. Neither of us said a word, for words would have broken the moment. Then, he nodded at me and took off through the brush, hardly making a sound for the crickets. I left too, feeling lightheaded and happy. Once back at the house, the older men of the family had gathered around the large dining room table and were quietly playing cards. All my cousins were asleep in the den, the fire in the backyard having long been cold. My mom was asleep in our bedroom, with an arm cast over on my side, warming it for me. Slipping into my night clothes, I opened the window a crack to let the night breezes in, along with the sounds of the crickets, and I think, maybe, as my eyes closed and my mind relaxed, a riff of “Amazing Grace” quietly drifted through the air.  

Author's Note

What's another spiritual that is fairly well-known? I could not think of one and Amazing Grace was the closest to what I wanted.