A Fool Such As I

Because the temperature hasn’t hit below 70 in probably 48 hours now (it doesn’t sound bad until you try to sleep in it), the house is even warmer and our internet is still down (posting this via another, unprotected connection only accessible on everyone’s computer but mine), I wound up out reading on the porch tonight.

But after only a few pages in I began noticing the sounds all around. It wasn’t distracting (I could have continued reading with no problem at all) but in realizing that I was in the midst of something I stopped reading to take in the small concerto playing around me.

The song I was hearing was being created by the sounds of the locusts buzzing in the trees; our new next door neighbor walking out, saying “hi,” going out to his car, then back up the porch into his house and locking his door; the father and son that could be heard walking by across the street; the high pitched bark coming from what sounded like a few yards over from the west; the mom and her two kids, talking quietly, who walked by our porch; the TV that could be heard from a living room window from across the street; the next door neighbors also talking quietly on their porch; the odd unknown bird yelp that was only heard once; the corner store customers coming and going at the end of the block; and even the jet that passed overhead. None a constant hum but only adding their notes here and there in a nearly unnoticeable harmony. And as the locusts’ buzzing was keeping time—it was a buzzing that came and returned with a noticeable regularity—and the repetition of the cars passing were ushering in the next verses, I allowed that even the words I was reading could have easily been the lyrics.

And I wished I could have heard every one of the songs going on, each simultaneously playing for each porch and every porch on every street in the entire city, in any city—or field, or woods, or river—the world over at that moment, for every song was just different enough depending on location—some things that I heard might not be audible four doors down, but they too could here things that I could not and thus each experience unique—yet each song just a small part of the same song (still being played now if only allowed to be heard), that I wanted to hear the entire song, all the parts at once, myself.

I am not so selfish to be disappointed to not be able to hear all the parts of the songs at once however. Sitting there, I appreciated the one unique piece of the symphonic cacophony [sic?], the hypnotic cacophony of life, I was able to hear at that moment, and could hear at any moment, that we each can hear on a daily basis.

And yet here we are paying $18 for new albums; $8 for movies (or only $4 if we rent one [wink]); watching TV; rolling up our windows as we drive home secluded from the sounds of the road, blasting the radio that’s playing the same Led Zeppelin tune we’ve all heard (and still don’t know the name of); and here too so many, fools such as I, are still sitting down to create poetry, and writing books, and banging our heads in desperate hope of forcing out thought full of life out, all the while missing the readily accessible and universally free constant hum of everything full of life and music.

I’ve always believed that I could very well be wrong about that particular sound being locusts. I suppose I could learn what it is or even learn what type of bird it was that I heard. But enjoying music does not require knowing the instruments. All that matters is having heard it and knowing I heard it and having been a part of it. And today, just as every day before and every day here after that song plays on. Each part unique and to be forever lost except to those willing to hear it.