one bright golden wing

 

"To Walden the saxophone was, at once, his key to the world in which he found himself, and the way by which that world was rendered impotent to brand him either failure or madman or Negro or saint. But then sometimes on the smoky stand, between solos, he hung it from his swinging shoulder like one bright, golden wing, and waited for his time."

-The Horn, by John Clellon Holmes