Lordy, Mercy
—after Bob Thompson’s Garden of Music (USA) 1960
I heard your story, Robert Johnson, how you could rip
the harmonica and jaw harp like the night wind in the pines,
how sorrow clotted in your soul and the blues burst forth
when you lost your kind-hearted woman and baby yet unborn.
How, like the honeybee attracted to ultra-violet blooms,
you longed for unholy manna from the up-and-coming Son.
From itinerants mastering their music on street corners,
in barbershops, in graveyards under the ghostly shadows of moonlight.
How you bowed the knee at the crossroads at midnight and bargained
with the devil to blues up, and like dried beans in warm water, you
filled the whole Delta with story, fire, and song until the Stealthy One
claimed your soul in summer, ensuring your membership in myth’s
Twenty-seven Forever Club. Mr. Johnson, if we had possession
over tomorrow’s Judgment Day. If we could have possession
over just that one day. We’d award you peace and love and the soul
winner’s crown. For life. For the long life you did not have.
For the music you were not fated to chart.
Published: The Ekphrastic Review, Sept. 2024 as part of Marathon 10