What was it Monk was searching for as he pressed the pedals and stretched his fingers to make new chords, or to make one familiar more than minor? As this the living every day, a day like before but different, a certain slant of light against the factory wall now slightly changed since yesterday: not citrine, more mustard, or the way yesterday the bare pear trees are now suddenly in bloom. Once on the bus to work I saw the same old woman I had seen sit there for years, the one who wears a green coat and reads a romance novel and talks to the driver. She is about sixty, as the driver and I are too—hell nearly everyone is today. This woman I heard her start to hum, then catch a tune, then sing, in a perfect bluesy drawl My One and Only Love, as if the spirit of Sarah Vaughan had entered her body. Her voice meandered as the driver called out stops, then turned the way the autumn leaves outside blew across the walk. The way starlings might anoint the sky with their murmuration. The other passengers sat stunned. When she finished, we exploded into applause. Amongst us are these hidden saints who reach out to heal the faint and faltered. One day all the trees are blooming the next they are bare. O Monk if I could ask, I would ask you what were the chords that once you found you could not bear?
