Name: Ruby Meraki Oenomel/Ruby Kaila Malhotra
Country: Canada
Title: “Where Do the Echoes Go?”
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In the hush of Harlem nights, where bass lines breathe like jazz ghosts,
I asked the wind, “Dae ye ken the tune the stars hum tae the moon?”
She answered soft in a Liverpool lilt,
AUM
“Only the brave hearts o’ Glasgow dare dream that loud.”
As buzzing rainbows from Mumbai monsoon rhythms to New Orleans brass,
Strung music walks barefoot across the cobbles of Lisbon,
Tune in twirling moons each note a pilgrim, waves pin
Read, each silence tango a sermon.
They say in Cairo, oud strings know stories the pyramids forgot.
And in Kingston, riddims rise like sun from sugarcane sorrow.
Yet still I wonder—who hears the hush between harmonies?
Do echoes get lonely when the beat moves on?
In Tokyo, a shakuhachi sigh whispers of forgotten wars,
“Rain down on me”, a question curled in kigo:
“If the sakura falls alone in Shibuya, does it still sing?”
Rome remembers operas ghazals and qawalis rush
Brooklyn spits bars that crack concrete
Similes slinging truth slicker than subway steel.
“I rise like Bed-Stuy heat in July”
The Hurrian hymn shies
Keystrokes a boy raps under streetlight halos,
Fluted, his verses painting saints in sneakers.
In the souks of Marrakech, metaphors burn like spices
Mozart rewrites clove and cumin, truth and treason,
Chanting in churches, choirs cuneiform courts cantata
“Raindrops on rosies and whiskers on smittens”
“The heart is a lantern, ya habibi, but even light lies sometimes.”
A wise man laughs into a lute’s wail.
Flat she hums in hexameter,
“Why Why Why”
Crooning cobbled verses penned by marble mouths, dizi
Kalimba and Athens replies with metaphors in marble and myth.
Simile steps softly in Soweto,
Notes meeting “bach to bach”
Toha comparing struggle to storm and hope to rain.
In Melbourne, the metaphors ride trams
Street drummers silent passengers of past verses.
Buenos Aires spins a tango of tragedy and truth,
Jazz while Lagos rhymes pain with power,
So I ask you now, accordion pleats rhythm or violin
Harp you wanderer of wavelengths,
Trombone composer of chaos and calm
Look dynamics giocoso legato quarters slurs lo rhapsodize
Ragas tag music memory, or miracle?
Is it story, or spell? All lost.
When it comes to concerts, Tessitura rocks
Or just the world’s breath exhaled in E minor?
So, Anacrusis, sheets now composing orchestras by taleae
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When there’s music, art etches what notes won’t carve