I can hear the bluegrass music.
History in the making,
The music our ancestors played
Alive and breathing
With a new vengeance.
Everything blends together in one fast melody.
Young and old work together
Picking out centuries of notes.
The banjos sing loud and hard
Like summer rain on a hot tin roof.
The guitars dance and sing
To the foot-tapping breakdowns,
And groan and cry
With the old-fashioned murder ballads.
The mandolins take their turn,
High-pitched and little,
The baby of the bunch,
A cute little brother,
But still an entity and a voice all its own.
The fiddles saw and cry,
Baying like a hound dog
On a lonely, moonlit night.
But then the next song comes around,
And they are the wordless callers of the dance,
Soaring far above the noise.
Last but not least,
The big bass booms its back-up,
The backbone of the band.
The father of the group,
Keeping the children in line,
In perfect time,
Calling them out and scolding,
His deep voice leading them,
Bringing them back to the rhythm’s fold.
I see the pickers.
Drenched in sweat,
But all are smiling.
The farm boy in overalls
Is suddenly an envied prodigy,
A Monroe or Scruggs in the making,
With his shining Gibson banjo
In his calloused working hands.
The mountain girls sawing on their fiddles
Transform to Dolly Parton and Alison Krauss
In the fading light of the warm Appalachian evening,
Their long skirts twirling to the chopped out beat.
The feet, both ancient and new,
Are frenzied soldiers,
Marching, flat-footing,
Stepping out a beat on the old wooden floor,
Taps and stomps echo through the night.
No one can sit still.
And then it is my turn for a break,
My chance to add my verse to the song.
And suddenly I am one with the music.
We are two old mountain friends
Brought up together.
Not uptight,
Relaxed and in our element.
Everything is peace.
We blend with familiar perfection,
A love like Johnny and June.
All of my emotions,
The joy and the pain,
The heartaches and shame
Are completely lost,
Caught up in the heartbeat
Of this land I call home.
My fingers are dancers,
The fretboard my floor,
And all together
This wondrous, twangy music and I,
We soar.