The Paradiddle of Being - Book One: The Struck World
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The Paradiddle of Being:
A Rhythmic Meditation
Pt 1
Daniel Henry Rodgers
"What if the cadence of our lives is a drumbeat shaping who we are in every breath and step? In every heartbeat lies a paradiddle a most delicate balance of presence and absence of sound and stillness. Listen deeply this is the song of connection…..a rhythmic meditation on what it means to be alive." - Poet
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Listen to poem:
I.
In the beginning was the Single Stroke Roll—
left-right, left-right, the primordial heartbeat
of existence itself, each alternation a binary choice
between being and non-being, the eternal paradiddle
of consciousness striking against the drumhead of reality.
Listen: the Buzz Roll of morning traffic—
ten thousand souls creating multiple bounces
against the stretched skin of commuter silence.
Each ghost note a rhythmic prayer unheard
each accent mark a life crying out:
I am here, I matter, count me.
The city breathes in shuffle time—
that ancient syncopation of hope deferred
where every third beat swings wide
like a child reaching for a parent's hand—
missing by milliseconds, by miles
by the mathematics of longing itself.
He doesn't know yet—
we are the drum.
II.
We are all practicing our flamacues
in isolation—
those grace notes bleeding into main strikes
the delicate millisecond between
intention and impact, between
the person we were and the sound we make
when we finally connect
with something real.
In subway tunnels, the half-time feel
of exhausted laborers moving through molasses time,
their footsteps creating polyrhythms
against the four-on-the-floor of industrial progress—
each drag, each ruff an improvised elegy
for the parts of themselves
they've learned to silence.
The paradiddle becomes theological:
Right-Left-Right-Right—
I believe, I doubt, I believe, I believe—
but that final repetition always weaker
always questioning its own conviction
the stick trembling
in the grip of faith.
Boots thunder obedience—
but not all rhythm is consent.
III.
In hospital rooms, the cross-sticking
of IV drips against metal poles
creating linear patterns where
no two sounds occur simultaneously—
life reduced to its most essential rhythm
each beat a negotiation
with mortality.
The dying woman's breath becomes a ratamacue:
two quick gasps, then a long exhale—
then the paradiddle of her children's sobs—
grief learning its own rudimentary patterns
the muscle memory of loss
written in the ligaments
of the heart.
But listen closer to the songo of survival—
that Cuban fusion where every strike
serves multiple purposes, where the snare
can be both confession and celebration
where the same hands that beat out sorrow
can syncopate their way
to joy.
Skins stretched, tongues stripped—
still, we are the drum.
IV.
The refugee child practices her three-stroke ruff
on scavenged cardboard in the camp—
each strike naming a country left behind
each echo a language dimming in memory—
but the rhythm, God—the rhythm endures
etched into the double helix of survival.
In boardrooms, the trap-pattern hi-hats
tick out capitalism’s clockwork greed—
wealth subdivided in thirty-second notes
compounding faster than compassion can track
while the bass drum of basic human need
strikes once—muted, overlooked—
lost in the downbeat of excess.
The old jazz master's hands shake now
but still remember the bebop complexities
of 1958, when integration meant
black hands and white hands
finding the same downbeat
despite history's best efforts
at syncopation.
She walks in time with gunfire—
but not all rhythm is consent.
V.
In the delivery room, the breakbeat
of contractions building to crescendo—
the mother's breath creating drum fills
in the spaces between impossible pain
until finally—the single stroke
of a first cry, the most ancient rhythm
announcing itself to a world
that has forgotten
how to listen.
The funeral march becomes a second-line parade—
New Orleans wisdom transforming grief
into celebration, the corpus of mourners
finding the backbeat in goodbye,
teaching us that even endings
can swing if you know where to place
the emphasis
of your attention.
Their pulses perfect—
but not all rhythm is consent.
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Book 2 is coming.....
Copyright © Daniel Henry Rodgers | Year Posted 2025
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