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http://redclaydiary.com/
or read his story below:
THE SING-SONG WOMAN UNDER THE RAINBOW
The stilled afternoon breeze of Southside Birmingham is broken by a new sound.
Somewhere off in the distance you can hear something not quite like the other sounds of the street.
Not a car un-muffled, not a dog howling against the city’s loneliness, not a baby crying cribless.
It’s another sound, and it’s coming closer.
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby…
It’s becoming clear now. It’s a flat, rounded-tone voice, and it’s very precise and methodical.
It’s the sing-song woman.
She walks by a time or two a day, singing a different song each time.
If you knew Suzie like I know Suzie
Oh, oh, oh what a gal…
The songs are all old. But they are the songs you don’t easily forget once you’ve heard them clearly. The phrases are simple and clever, the thoughts are easy to grasp, and the voices that used to record them were not drowned out by highly amplified instruments and heavy beats.
Singin’ in the rain, just singin’ in the rain.
What a glorious feeling I’m happy again…
At first when you hear the sing-song woman, you feel your day has been intruded upon. The song is loud, and you can’t ignore it and go on about your work. The sing-song woman knows most of the words correctly, and you even learn a few more by listening to her.
That old black magic has me in its spell,
That old black magic that you weave so well…
There she is, now. Her head is down. She dresses plainly and walks slumped and straight ahead. But her voice sounds out huskily and methodically.
First you say you will and then you won’t,
And then you say you do and then you don’t,
You’re undecided now, so what are you gonna do?
I don’t know anything about the sing-song woman. She’s like many others who wander around Southside Birmingham going no place in particular. Like many of the others, she doesn’t look around. But she doesn’t bother anybody, either.
I’m laughing at clouds so dark up above,
The sun’s in my heart and I’m ready for love.
The heart inside this weathered woman is still ticking. The spirit rises above her body and sings on its own:
Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place,
Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face.
Whatever life has meted out to this Southside denizen, there’s something inside her that won’t stay down. She’s a bag lady whose bag is a wonderful lyric.
I’ll walk down the lane with a happy refrain,
And singin’ just singin’ in the rain.
Is this woman’s entire life lived in an old tune written by long-forgotten composer?
Why am I smilin’ and why do I sing?
Why does December seem sunny as Spring?
Why do I get up each morning to start
Happy and het up with joy in my heart?
Why is each new task a trifle to do?
Because I am living a life full of you.
The lover to whom she sings the song is not with her on these daily treks. Perhaps her lover no longer lives. Perhaps her lover never was.
But it is obvious that to the sing-song woman, her lover is as real as her song in the afternoon breeze
© Jim Reed 2016 A.D.