22/52: Different Drummer

I didn't think there was something genetic

about being deaf to the drummer of society.

But now that I stand amid generations
I see it, this pattern I've passed on to you

and I wish it were not so.

It is this very trait, this far-hearingness
that has machined me
painfully into this man
who I am.

I would not have wished it upon you
to be lathed by loneliness

to have your spontaneity ground down
by the scrapers and gouges of your peers,

but your inheritance
is the ridicule of not knowing the rules,
the humiliation of inadvertent deviance.

You'll have to listen harder, my child,
you'll have to attend to that faint cadence
no one else can hear.

Your birthright is that distant high hat,
that remote tom,
the far flung djembe
that calls you, and only you.

I am sorry,
and I am sorry I am delighted.



audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/different-drummer