THAT’S MY SONG
- Hakim Hilliard
- Jun 16
- 1 min read
Updated: Jul 4
She hear music
like the river hear rain.
Soft at first.
Then all at once.
“THAT’S my song, Daddy.”
But she ain’t saying it to me.
Not really.
She say it
like somebody answered her
from far away.
Like she heard something calling her name
older than this room.
Older than me.
And there she go—
little feet catching hold
of some old-time drum
ain’t nobody else
in the room can hear
the same way she hear it.
Folks stop walking.
Folks smile.
But she don’t notice none of it.
Baby gone somewhere deeper.
Moving like joy done struck fire
inside her bones.
Old people say
rhythm live longer than memory.
Say the drum keep talking
even after the hands go still.
And watching her then,
I swear it felt like
she wasn’t dancing to the music.
She was answering it.
Like all the gone-away people
who never got enough living,
never got enough laughing,
never got enough freedom
to move however the spirit called them—
had found a way
to speak again
through this one little girl.
And Lord,
the way she smiled at the music
like she knew it personally
made me remember
the world ain’t always been cruel
to the music in us
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