If only I could write like this masterful Okie writer: “Over the park the silence spread from the slow muffled rolling of the drums, the crunching of footsteps on the walks. Then somewhere in the procession an old, plaintive, masculine voice arose in a song, wavering, stumbling in the silence at first alone, until in the band a euphonium horn fumbled for the key and took up the air, one catching and rising above the other and the other pursuing, two black pigeons rising above a skull-white barn to tumble and rise through still, blue air. And for a few bars the pure sweet tone of the horn and the old man’s husky baritone sang a duet in the hot heavy silence. “There’s Many a Thousand Gone.” And standing high up over the park something fought in my throat. It was a song from the past, the past of the campus and the still earlier past of home. And now some of the older ones in the mass were joining in. I hadn’t thought of it as a march before, but now they were marching to its slow-paced rhythm, up the hill. I looked for the euphonium player and saw a slender black man with his face[…]” Excerpt From: Ellison, Ralph. “Invisible Man.” Vintage, 1980. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:23:04 +0000
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