In this precious moment
The amber glow seemed to
Wake like the spring bear
Ravenous and with purpose
An arrow to the heart
And dusted off from previously
Glorious tassels of fake gold
And silver… pearl… diamonds
Bared to the skin
It takes a journey of ethereal glimpses… of personality
Days even to notice
That maybe we’re not sure… maybe we are
Perhaps more intentional than we give ourselves credit for
Can you feel it?
Can you hear it?
If you can See it
You can believe it
You can Be it
Author’s Note
I wrote this piece in 2002 after returning from Burning Man. One evening, I was on the deck of the art car Letucia the Lemuran Lovecraft during a sunset sail, while the band Zuvuya played on the bow. A big circle of dancers had gathered, and at some point I finally worked up the nerve to take the microphone and improvise, simply letting the words arrive as they wished.
The final lines in this poem were part of what I sang that evening. Not long after, John Perry Barlow approached me. I had not even realized he was there. He asked whether the words were my own. When I told him yes, he nodded and said, “Pretty good.”
It was a small moment, but a meaningful one. I felt seen, not as a performer, but as someone speaking from a true place. This poem remains a record of that window of clarity and courage, and a reminder of what it feels like to fully step into the moment.
Written by : Trevor A. Clendenin
Trevor A. Clendenin is an African-American writer and lifelong musician whose work blends lived experience with a clear-eyed, literary sensibility. Raised in a military family and shaped by years spent in Boulder, St. Croix, and on the road, he’s moved through the worlds of jam bands, digital media, and small-town creative communities with the same curiosity that drives his fiction. His debut novel, Zuvuya, draws on decades spent in America’s improvisational music orbit, where transcendence, failure, ambition, and myth often collide.
Before turning to creative writing, Trevor earned a BA in Philosophy from Rollins College, a Master in Visual Media from IE in Madrid, served in the Peace Corps in Jamaica, worked as the Director of New Media for a PBS affiliate in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and later co-founded a digital marketing agency. He has played guitar in bars, basements, festivals, and renegade fireside jams across the country, and still believes that music communities are one of the last places where people strive for truth.
He lives in Savannah, Georgia, with his wife and daughter, and is at work on new fiction and essays about aspiration, identity, and the strange pilgrimage of American life.
Subscribe to Zuvuya Book
GET THE LATEST WORDS AND HAPPENINGS
Your personal information will never be shared.