World Music
by Kamau Daáood

one thousand saxophones
seven hundred kotos
eleven machetes dripping sugarcane
three hundred violins
six hundred fifty bagpipes
fresh cut bamboo screaming
nine thousand birds in prayer
two thousand mechanics
grease buried beneath short fingernails
eight hundred sitars
seven ten-foot gongs

one million tearless children in Ethiopia
three hundred hammers
two hundred saws
ten holy men in subways
twelve divine mothers in wash houses
fifteen hundred shovels in South African Mines
forty-nine koras and seventeen balaphones
seven thousand and three assorted drums
seven thousand and two assorted hearts
fifty steel drums

ten thousands midwives carrying fresh fruit
seventy purple banjos
half a million Muslims chanting Quran
six thousand birds of paradise
one hundred golden fishermen’s nets
three thousand silkworms
eight thousand waterfalls
seven trillion ten billion six hundred and
one million two hundred and four tubas
and one black chopstick