But—
Frankie shot Johnny.
We Americans have had to borrow rue from our slaves; they have enough, and to spare
We call it blues—and the origin's appropriate to us.
The child in his cradle listens to locomotives talking themselves up the long grades, bidding the counties farewell in the night.
Ours is a civilization of pistons, motors turning, electrons peppering filaments into light. We are
a racy people.
We got rhythm.
The tempo of our love and the momentum of our woe are one.
Our exultation soars with edifices that scrape the sky—then falters underground where we have iron rivers to carry the people home—and there is no home when they get there but only the percussant streets again, the shooting tabernacles, the radiance, the tumult in time.
We sleep.
Morning comes.