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Ode to Otha

by Rafael Otto © 2009

From under a heavy brow, satin-brown eyes level a gaze so intense he sees a man’s spirit through the flesh. Descendant of Africa, descendant of slaves, he preserves a mystical music from the primal vibe of the earth. His face appears to have been carved from the buried stone under the Mississippi hills. Gnarled hands work the hot iron poker into the cane. They bore five holes for his fingers and one to direct the passage of his breath. The cane fife is fifteen inches, a slight bent through the middle. Messianic teacher offers the music of the cane to generations that follow. Every breath becomes a lesson, every word a testament to sacred truth. “Heap see, might few know,” he says, words dropping like lead weights to the footpath into the wild. His heavy upper lip is smooth and snarls slightly before it moves down to the fife. As he clutches the cane, he begins to breathe music, the sharp pitch cutting through the hill county of the American south, carrying songs that have no beginning and no end. Immortal blues, spirituals, instrumentals. Secular songs that make bones shimmie and wobble, blood rush through the gut. He sings. Then the music of the cane mimics the song’s melody, welcoming the night as the hills grow dark. The drums rumble incessantly under the sound of the fife. He dances with the rhythm like a wraith, pushing his breath over glistening lips, calling the spirits of love and peace in a blissful reverie. A crowd gathers around the drums as Otha works the cane. His feet press into the ground. Dust rises with the pulse of the music as snares crush and bass drums shake the rock bed. Rhythm impassions the crowd and the call of the fife cuts through the humid summer night, divides living consciousness, hypnotizes, holds the spin of the world in trance.

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