I just read this and am breathless. I once told a big kid to stop whistling in a locker room and apologized 40 years later. Why was his world turned inside out alarming to me? I was broken-hearted after the death of my brother and his seeming happiness was an intrusion on my brooding, I suppose. Maybe his brother had died too. I don’t know. I hum and hum and hum now, and whistle back at machines that beep and tweet at me, mimicking what’s outside not in. I’ve hummed A Love Supreme quietly a thousand times. Coltrane whistles full-throated throughout time. Emmett Till, too, whistles throughout time. Thank you for this awareness, Harmony Holiday, and for once again singing the truth. All this is to say, read this poem by Etheridge Knight, the last line is the answer to why: https://allpoetry.com/As-You-Leave-Me
I just read this and am breathless. I once told a big kid to stop whistling in a locker room and apologized 40 years later. Why was his world turned inside out alarming to me? I was broken-hearted after the death of my brother and his seeming happiness was an intrusion on my brooding, I suppose. Maybe his brother had died too. I don’t know. I hum and hum and hum now, and whistle back at machines that beep and tweet at me, mimicking what’s outside not in. I’ve hummed A Love Supreme quietly a thousand times. Coltrane whistles full-throated throughout time. Emmett Till, too, whistles throughout time. Thank you for this awareness, Harmony Holiday, and for once again singing the truth. All this is to say, read this poem by Etheridge Knight, the last line is the answer to why: https://allpoetry.com/As-You-Leave-Me