Here's another music number, one bookend, along with the first "Do", to a scale of poems. But it's not just about music. Try sunstituting other words and ideas. It seems to me that we live smack in the middle of a world obsessed with categories, good and bad, mine and yours, hot and cold, hip and square. The list keeps going until we divide up ways of worshipping, modes of living and ways of dying. Theloneous Monk took a more generous view. So did Duke Ellington: there are only two categories of music, he said, good and bad. That idea can fit other parts of life, too.

Do Again

Listen. Hear it.
Really hear it.
Ignore the distractions,
Dress, dance, occasion,
Label, message, mood.
Do you like Country Western,
a Swede asked Monk.
I like all music,
he said.
Yes, but Country Western?
Are you deaf?