Gossip Between River Rocks Poem by gershon hepner

The gossip I could only hear
between the river rocks was sweeter
than public voices in my ear
that did not move me. Senorita,
remember river rocks we shared,
and information never missed
in whispered words before we shared
our lips, till with our tongues we kissed.

Inspired by Simon Romero’s article on musical programs given to female prisoners in Venezuela (“Amid Despair in a Venezuelan Prison, Strains of Hope from a Music Program, ” NYT, June 23,2007) :
The orchestra at INOF is one of the most cosmopolitan in Venezuela. Many of the inmates are foreigners arrested on drug-smuggling charges. Women from Colombia, Spain, Malaysia and the Netherlands play instruments or sing in the chorus alongside Venezuelans. “I drain away my bad thoughts in the orchestra, ” said Joanny Aldana,29, a viola player serving a nine-year sentence for kidnapping and auto theft. Like some of the other inmates, she is imprisoned here with her child, a 2-year-old daughter. Still, she despairs sometimes. “There’s the pain of my children, of having destroyed my life, my youth, ” Ms. Aldana said. Perhaps no amount of music can make up for such loss. Perhaps that explains the fervor with which some of the women play their instruments or sing. It is not uncommon to see one of them shedding a tear when a certain note is struck. For Yusveisy Torrealba,18, that moment comes when the chorus sings a few words from “Caramba, ” the folk song by the Venezuelan composer Otilio Galíndez performed with the cuatro, a four-string guitar. Ms. Torrealba was caught in April taking cocaine on a flight to Orlando, Fla.
In her soft voice, she sang these lines for a visitor one recent afternoon:
Caramba, my love, caramba
The things we have missed
The gossip I could only hear
Between the rocks of the river.
“Caramba, ” she repeated quietly, as if contemplating how much time remained in an eight-year sentence that began last month. “The only thing keeping me together is this music.”

6/23/08