The two colors of brown on the guitar, gold harmonicas whistling and the white keys of the accordion dancing with the black.

The bonds built with song are engulfed with multitudes of smiles, only at each other.

Harmony ignored; one child eager for an introduction but is told to go to bed. There’s no room for you.

Large cowboy hats and leather boots, brown and black, and shiny belt buckles are what catches one’s eye.  Distracted by the shine of their oversized metallic buckles, laughter, and song they miss me.

The accordion plays…..a yell of joy rings out, as the brown over worked wrinkled fingers jump across the black and white keys, bringing with it a dance from side to side. 

“Ahey ahhey” …someone screams aloud, grito, leading them into song.  Laughter travels around and echoes in the small room where they all now dance, even their boots tap to the rhythm.  Their smiles are ear to ear, and they are not afraid to put arms around each other because their friendship and life’s age are equal.

The song in foreign tongue- sung with heart from the elders- the same flesh that I came from, made each one of them happy.

I long to sing these songs that they sing,

                                                            but I can’t.

I long for their acceptance

         for the bond they share.

But I speak in a different tongue.

            I don’t understand them.

The drunken comradery that Spanish songs brought in the night into my childhood home,

 these song’s purpose I understand but will forever remain un-interpretable to me.

That joy- that song and happiness- I wish I could share, to sing in their song. 

Let it ring in my ear.

Do they believe I am unable to learn our traditions, or do they just not want to teach me? Are they fearful that song would bring us closer together? Why deny me the gift?

The next morning…

Empty chairs are what remain, no instructors to share the inherit with me. I clean the empty cans and the filled ash trays.  Opening a window to the outside to let it in and freshen the stale sent of smoke.

Echoes of joy remain pungent in the air.

  I look around the room and can hear the songs they sang last night. I hear whispers of the stories the instrument’s harmony told.

Year after year their song grows dim as old age removes them, one by one.  Eventually ceasing their life, their melodies, their story, and their existence.

Their song is faint…soon no one will remain from the band of brothers.

Who will sing their songs?

There is no one to teach me the words….my voice remains quiet and I remain alone.

The room that years before filled with a brotherly atmosphere has vanished.

I sit in a wooden weaved chair, an accordion at my feet. A bird sings just outside the window.

Birds singing to her own families.

I long to sing. I long to sing their song.

Ahey ahhey ahhey