The exercise:
This Friday your four lines of prose shall be about: the musician.
Have a great weekend!
Mine:
He sits on the porch, cigarette smoke escaping his mouth with every word he sings. He strums the guitar and taps his bare feet on the worn wooden planks while he recharges his lungs with another long pull on his dangling cigarette. There is no one around to listen but he plays on anyway, for himself and the ants in the yard and the birds in the trees.
He plays for the ghost of one who has forgotten him but will never escape his thoughts.
I was debating to think of a song we're doing in choir or Amos Lee's Black River while I wrote this... the choir piece won out.
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She slipped her trusty harmonica out of her pocket with a heavy sigh... she'd seen so much, so much...
Faithfully she breathed life into that old harmonica, an old tune she'd heard from the field workers many times before. Her voice had failed her, something which pained her bitterly, but she still could feel the sound of those sweet, sweet words on her tongue as the harmonica sighed and sang for her.
Soon and very soon, we're going to see the King... halleluja! halleluja!, we're going to see the King...
Very poignant, Marc, you paint a really sweet, intriguing picture.
ReplyDeleteThe musician
His hands brought forth music from the most unexpected places. At a quiet supper table the beer mats would be swiftly gathered up and used for a drum solo against the table; when we climbed to the top of the local hills he'd have percussion from the flints and stones he'd find en route. Even when cancer landed him in hospital he somehow managed to find the music in the tautness of the bedcovers, the laughter of the nurses and the clink of a kidney dish against a stethoscope.
At his funeral, no music played and no-one sang; we acknowledged that without him the music was gone.
Long hair, too thin frame, uneven smile and more than a few years older. Long stretches of time at the abandoned house in the untamed country. A small pond, peeling paint, weeds and wild flowers taller than I, the broken down car, smell of old wood, a dampness in the air and the sound of him strumming the guitar and singing. My first boyfriend. My first kiss. My first love.
ReplyDeleteg2 - ah, Amos Lee. Now you've gone and made me dig out his CD... thank you :)
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely piece, and I very much like the idea that the harmonica can still sing for her.
Greg - speaking of poignant! Everything about that last line is pitch perfect.
Heather - you certainly brought that to life for me, so many great little details. Very nicely done :)