Publishing  “The Negro-Spiritual” was difficult. First, my computer is on the blink. A technician came and told me that all was right. But it isn’t. At any rate, yesterday’s post was sent to trash twice and I had to rebuild it. I had a copy of the text and my images, but finding images is now more difficult. No human being would do this to me. The Classic editor was more useful to me. I felt I was being punished and after a day’s labour, I was crying like a child. At that cost, my career is definitely over. My brain was damaged because I caught the H1N1 virus, in February 1976. I developed Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. In 1991, it was found that the rate of perfusion of blood to my brain was too slow and that the damage was significant. It has affected my memory, but not my intelligence. I am lucid.

As you know, I made a mistake. I left Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where I owned a lovely blue house across the street from the Campus. I was overworked and fell ill. I had no strength left. The insurance company agent was asked by her doctor, the one she hired, to please tell me not to sell my house or make important decisions until I had recovered. I would recover. She didn’t say a word. 

I had presented a doctor’s note, but it was not taken seriously. No one replaced me. After a short rest, I returned to work. In the eyes of the Insurance Company’s employee, by returning to finish the year’s assignment, I proved that I was an imaginary invalid. The Company stopped paying benefits. I therefore decided to return to work asking for a normal load. I was fooled into relinquishing my tenure.

I never recovered from losing my career and access to a research library. No one would buy my apartment because the purchaser could not take a mortgage. Life is very humble.

In the meantime, I write posts and try to make my apartment beautiful. It’s a bit expensive and help is difficult to find during a pandemic. Workers do not all wear their mask. It cannot be seen, but the virus kills.

But let us return to Blacks. If the Blacks, who were often captured by Blacks and ended up in the bottom of a slave ship to be sold to plantation owners who could be very cruel, they needed a promised land. Death becomes a promise. One enters eternal life. This is something I can understand as I have often wished to commit suicide to end the pain.

As for the Blacks being black, it tells nothing about their personality and their qualities. In fact, I am reminded of a legend in Quebec, and perhaps elsewhere, about the beggar at your door. According to the legend, he may be Jesus in disguise. So, one must feed him and give him a bed. The legend is Notre Seigneur en pauvre (Our Lord as a poor man). I discussed it elsewhere. Sir Ernest MacMillan set it to music. For my part, I wrote a song. The music resembles the negro–spiritual, but the words are about the beggar, or Our Lord as a poor man. And it is a love song.  

The song has three parts. The first and the third are sung, but the middle is for wind instruments preferably. It is entitled “The Beggar.” The melody is intricate and it is for an excellent singer.

Part One

There came a beggar to my door.
A man I’d never seen before.
I let him in,
He’s been here since.
The Beggar is King.
No…I’ll never let him go,
I’ll never let him go.

Part Two

(INSTRUMENTAL)
mostly improvised

Part Three

I told my mother my father ’bout the beggar;
I told my brother, my sisters ’bout the beggar.
They said:
The’re law…yers,
The’re doc…tors,
Drop…the beggar. (Drop is a very long and high note)
But, I will never let him go…
But, I will ne…ver let him go…
But, I will…ne…ver…let…et him go (syncopated)

(INSTRUMENTAL  I – IV – I)

In short, yesterday, I wanted to change the video I had chosen. I preferred the video I had discover.

The singer is Maescha Brueggergoshan, and the pictures turn the post into something more coherent and almost poetical.

I wish Maescha would learn my Beggar. I had a lung illness just before Covid-19. I could not speak for three months and lost two thirds of my lungs. My voice has returned, but I can’t sing.

Please don’t laugh. I have been asked to customize my page, which I cannot do. Nor can I customize my social media icons. For that matter, I cannot use a Smartphone. 

I wish you all the very best. 💕

No one can copy the lyrics to this song.

© Micheline Walker
18 August 2020
WordPress