Rubble From The Landslips Of Chance

Ali Farka Touré / Ry Cooder: Talking Timbuktu





The landscape of my days
appears to be composed,
like mountainous regions,
of varied materials
heaped up pell-mell.
There I see my nature,
itself composite,
made up of equal parts
of instinct and training.
Here and there protrude
the granite peaks
of the inevitable,
but all about is rubble
from the landslips of chance.
I strive to retrace my life
to find in it some plan,
following a vein of lead,
or of gold, or the course
of some subterranean stream,
but such devices are
only tricks of perspective
in the memory.
--Marguerite Yourcenar
Memoirs of Hadrian



King Sunny Ade: Ja Funmi