9. A Song About Brownness
December 9, 2011
A friend of mine introduced this song/jam by Reggie Watts. I was and am still fascinated and entertained by this artist’s random humor and exploration in music. This piece, according to Watts, is a song about brownness.
To Mary Jo Salter
Beyond the ice-bound stones and bucking trees,
past bewildered Mary, the Meer in snow,
two skating rinks and two black crooked paths
are a battered pair of reading glasses
scratched by the skater’s multiplying math.
Beset, I play this game of tic-tac-toe.
Divide, subtract. Who can tell if love surpasses?
Two naughts we’ve learned make one astonished 0–
a hectic night of goats and compasses.
Folly tells the truth by what it’s not–
one X equals a fall I’d not forgo.
Are ice and fire the integers we’ve got?
Skating backwards tells another story–
the risky star above the freezing town,
a way to walk on water and not drown.
- Skating in Harlem, Christmas Day by Cynthia Zarin
