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Such Are The Days
By Isabelle Ghaneh

I want to write music
I want to hear my own melodies
laughing, dancing in my mind
I want to look at the sky and hear sounds
I want to unbutton my ears, let them be free
Without headphones I hear only silence
the whir of the computer
the putt putt of the refrigerator
the constant drone of the television
outside yes, there's the occasional bird, the small song of the cricket
even the highflying plane going overhead
the promise it bungs of adventure and space and travel
but I get nothing
I see words and colors and lights but no music
I wonder, when I listen to the news this morning
a woman walking on the railroad tracks with her four boys
immigrants all
we were all immigrants you know
once
its midnight
the radio voice says
midnight and this woman from Paraguay or Guatemala or Columbia
someplace like that
was walking on the train tracks
looking for something
listening for something
music maybe
music that said come here, come find me
the music in her head must have been loud
it would have to be, to drown out all the noise around her
a bad husband, a bad sister, a bad life
working as a cleaning lady all damn day long, cleaning up other peoples shit
I know what that's like, I used to do it myself
I felt like the hash container of the town where I lived which is
where she lived well, the same county the most affluent county in
America maybe even the world since America, we all know, the
land of the free and the brave
us
is the richest county ever, in the world
if we look at the world as one place, say
us, we, this people
more than Midas, we have
and rich people, well, they have a lot of shit that needs cleaning
when the train hit her and her chicks
her brood, her nestlings
did the train rumble sound like music to her
the far away assurance of something
a word of a song that floated over the sea once long ago
or a fragrance, even, if not a song, a scent of lemons maybe, that she remembers
maybe she was ten or eleven and the world was stretched out
one long picture in a book, the pages unread
not even written yet
that's why I wish I could write music
hear music
know what it takes to make music, sounds
sing even
that's my reason





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Document last modified on: 01/12/2002

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