Teach the Mountainside to Drum

I’m trying to pull what is quietly there in the back of my mind,

to the foreground.

Metaphor, piano notes, these things hold meaning.

Can I explain on ruled paper, rectangular, thin?

Can someone explain to a mountainside how to drum, each on their own djembe, congas, some leading now others some dropping back a little girl dancing clouds gathering?

Some things cannot be orchestrated.

Metaphor, images of a cloth-draped man calmly holding a flail,

Men linked together ankle-to-ankle, orange, no hair.

One look and you know.

Ideas of punishment-revenge, loss of freedom, loss of choice come and you feel it and you don’t need an explanation.

Play the game.

Wrestle the song to 5 lines 4 spaces. Remember the clef, the signatures.

It’s not enough to hear it; to play it. The proof waits on paper.

This is what we need:

We need the proof.