moi, global village idiot


          Like the village idiot [l'innocent du village], I see the vision, I hear the mode
          And the instrument, but the words like a herd of stumbling buffaloes  [un troupeau de buffles confus] 
          Bump against my teeth and my voice opens on the void.
          The last chord hushed, and I must begin again at zero,
          Learn once again this language so strange and ambiguous [si étrangère et double] . . . 


from Léopold Sédar Senghor's "Elegy for Martin Luther King (for jazz orchestra)"


(found here)


(orig. here)



methinks TiR often feels this way, this summer / year, esp. whenever after reading the daily newspapers