distant music, fading ghosts

a month in the past, a break from heat, a brief passing rain

A melody drifts through shuddering cicadas and traffic rumbling on 35.

I can’t make it out — it is far but moving closer.

Clubs and patios broadcast live and recorded music, distorted by the acoustics of buildings and trees. It is happy hour.

The wind raises summer dust and wisps of smoke from a bbq pit blocks away, nudges ghosts of homesick travelers toward the coast, a wave and smile passes the back step, a wild hunt of ancient musicians tune their instruments.

laughter like tiny bells through the neighbor’s wind chimes as they ride heavy gusts that follow,

they scatter dry golden leaves from thirsty trees, whoop and howl,

release sun showers,

and delight tiny chickadees hopping in the hackberry tree that grows on the fenceline.¹

1. I figured I’d add some context to the following video, mostly because seeing chickadees hopping in the hackberry tree made me think of it. But … it’s really a song about a couple of thieving dogs and a frustrated farmer.

Ils ont vouler mon traineau lyrics

"Ils La Volet Mon Trancas" - Cleoma Breaux (same song, more background)

Overlooked No More: Cléoma Falcon, Queen of Cajun Music — NYT — “This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.” Excerpt below:

“The first Cajun record I bought, she was on it,” the singer and historian Ann Savoy, who in 2017 released an album, “Ann Savoy Plays the Music of Cléoma Falcon,” said by phone. “That voice sounded like it was coming from another world that I didn’t know, and it rang a bell in my heart. It was not a pretty, ornamental voice. It was an untrained voice trying to be as loud as it can be. She was a Cajun woman just blasting it out.”