Poetry
1 min
Open : Humble & Beautiful
Jillian Gold
We sat in a church basement
Five adult students
Mostly first-timers
Fiddles in our hands
We screeched along, trying
To boil our cabbages
To shave and a haircut
Our second go at You are My Sunshine
Was not particularly beautiful, in sound
The bones were there, not lost
In our tangle of missed notes
And one woman began to cry
Tried to quiet herself
Cheeks flushed, and apologizing
Remembering her father
How he used to sing her that song
I said out loud only the word beautiful
While another student briefly comforted
Her shoulders, back
As the class moved forward
Earlier, upstairs
During harmony singing
The same woman, now crying
Had said to me,
There's no judgement in this place.
And I, not knowing
What this place meant -
Church, or music camp
Or something else, bigger,
Sensed that she was right
As she explained, again
And I grasped at, sloppily
The smallest intervals
Downstairs, her first time holding,
Playing a fiddle, she said the word
Humbling, and it was -
Bracing through our own,
And each other's missed notes
Vulnerable and strong
Accepting the dissonance
Touching a space
Where music is sometimes born
Together and open
Wherever it takes us
Open
To the floodworks of memory
Boundaries and Bridges is a collection by incarcerated and unconfined writers from across the U.S. that explores connection and disconnection related to the justice system. This collection is supported by The Learning Inside Out Network (LION), an Alaska-based grassroots group that increases access to quality participation in artistic exchanges for people inside and out of the carceral system.
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