Miles Davis

Sometimes, perhaps mostly

I've found that a lack of knowledge 

improves my experience of things that interest me.

The allure that I can give 

to epochs that I was not present for,
or was, just barely,
for a variety of possible reasons

often imbue the things that I enjoy most from these times

with a special flavor.

This flavor seems to make them all the more delicious.

I started writing this thing

-whatever it is-

with the idea of noting why I like so much
two specific recordings of the jazz artist Miles Davis,

someone that I don't know too much about 

and a genre I know even less of.

After many starts,
and edits,
I found that too many ideas

and thoughts

and especially words

tangled me up

when writing in essay form.

So I thought to myself;

"self"

why not write in a form you know less of than even jazz

or Miles Davis?

And found this form perfect.

Spectator

The messages that I've received
so many times and in such varied ways
is that being a specator is always inferior
to being a player, yet
how does one begin playing?

For example:
I have assumed my entire life that if a person says "Adam Cooperstein"
they are talking about me.
People have used that name
in my presence (and when I have been nearby)
for as long as I can remember.

Although I may well be the person
weakly fitting into that moniker
I can't wholly convince myself that I am him
nor anyone else,

and while it is true,
that I have become more comfortable with the description, "Adam"
over time
I can't imagine an argument I could win
or facts that I could offer
to make me feel to be more of it.

The singing of birds

Although it is dark when I arrive
the birds are singing
as if the sun had already come up.
I follow, sensing too that it has.

It is truly other-worldly
being able to experience both darkness and daylight at the same time.
I imagine that it must be somewhat similar
to the sensation that people have
where the sun seldom or never rises or sets during certain times of the year.

I find it so welcoming of those birds
to provide such warming sounds for me
in a place which can be a little frightening so early in the morning

And it occurs to me
when hearing the chirping in that very dark blueness
that these beings must know better, or at least
have a different sense of what light is,
and what constitutes the beginning of the day.