TRUMPETER

On his last voyage Columbus

Took a trumpet player along

Perhaps to play for the Emperor

If China was finally found

Where it should have been

If Mexico wasn’t there instead.

When I read of this I thought

Musicians and ghosts both wander

And surely the trumpeter

Made his way to the Emperor

Though after many trials

Taking gigs along the way

Following jazz up the Mississippi

Along the St. Lawrence, then getting lost

And following it back down

Finding at last the hidden passage

By which the waters of the Amazon

Mingle with the Yang Tse.

All this I meant to write about

But my father’s friend, Zhu Youijan

The last Ming Emperor, was not

Feeling musical. The trumpeter

Stood on the shore watching

The poem pull away without him.