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Sunday, December 15, 2019

Listen for a Lonesome Drum


Yesterday, I attended a memorial service for a friend. I knew what I wanted to say, but did not have enough time to close with one passage that will always remind me of JBF, our time together, and how quickly it will be before we can hear the drums together. 

"The nights grow clearer and the Pleiades, the hungry dancing boys who will not come back to their crying mother because she would not feed them, are brighter than usual. Soon I think there will be drum-beats in the Genesee Country. Then I hope you will come and get me at the Reservation as you promised and take me and my water drum into the valley on a good night. Perhaps if I beat softly there they will hear and answer me and we will know for sure what makes the sound." 

 - written by Cornplanter. From Listen for a Lonesome Drum by Carl Carmer - 1936.



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