parts

Sometimes old snippets of songs waft out from where ever they are usually held in cold storage. Yesterday it was a Round I learned in elementary school; Sweetly Sings the Donkey. (By the way, there is nothing sweet about a donkey braying. It could stop your heart.)

Sweetly sings the donkey
At the break of day
If you do not feed him
This is what he'll say
Hee haw, hee haw
Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw.
Hee haw, hee haw
Hee haw, hee haw, hee haw.

Some afternoons, our teacher would stop writing on the blackboard.
She would fix us with a sprightly smile and wave her arm.
Hazah, we were divided into groups.
Group one would launch into song.
Just as they teetered on the brink of the second stanza she would fix her eyes on group two and waving her arm, stir them into action. Sometimes there was even a third group and heaven help us, a forth.
Children all around the room squinted their ears and sang with fervor. They tried not to listen to, in fact, they tried not to even hear the person singing one row over. Listening to the song as it rolled out in waves was a fatal mistake as your voice invariably followed your ears.
That is because Rounds are the musical version of patting your head while rubbing your stomach.

I told my grandson today that it reminds me of politics.
People are all singing their song as loudly as they can.
They are not listening to anyone else if they can possibly help it.

Our teacher always let us sing the song through several times and gradually a second song emerged to our amazed ears. A harmony that went in and around and up and away.

That's the hope isn't it, with politics, that somehow, the very different lyrics will blend and become greater in their sum than their parts.