The RCA Golden Throat Radio

The rhythm of their dancing while still in his mother’s womb

Bearing witness to Mom and Dad dancing in the kitchen of our home

Music filled the kitchen from the RCA Victor Golden Throat radio in a wooden cabinet.

When Buddy Holly came on, the volume knob was turned to the right

Music thundered off the linoleum floor; he saw their reflection in the toaster.

She went to the kitchen to make coffee on February 3, 1959.

Heard the news from the RCA Victor Golden Throat radio in a wooden cabinet

Turned the knob with such force, it dislodged, bouncing across the kitchen floor.

From that moment on, music was no longer allowed in their home

Not allowed to be played anywhere around his parents: not in the kitchen, not in the car.

A home void of music knows no joy, where love is a distant memory, trying to survive

Life cannot endure in such a place where bodies move without rhythm.

Mom succumbed first; Dad less than a year later

No music was played at their solemn funerals that only a few attended

The RCA Victor Golden Throat radio in a wooden cabinet beckoned,

He turned the knob to the right, after twenty years it was silent.

He added it to the pile of donations for the church,

He sold the house, bought a car, nothing left for him in his hometown.

Rain beats against his car; sheets of rain pour down the windshield,

The wipers swoosh back and forth, the mist makes is difficult to see.

He follows the taillights in front of him, until it disappears in the fog.

The rain beats harder; his fingers fumble on the dashboard for a knob,

He turns it to the right, hears only static from the speakers.

The rain comes down harder; he cannot see…only a light in the distance

The rhythm of the wipers change; a pulse pushes through the static.

It is February 3, 1980, the dawning of a new decade; the static clears,

The rain stops, the sky turns from gray to blue as the song escapes the speakers

A woman’s voice, clear and soulful fills his car, singing a song about a radio,

Not an RCA Victor Golden Throat radio in a wooden cabinet, but a car radio,

His radio, Donna Summer “On the Radio,” singing to a disco rhythm,

He turns the knob to the right, music thunders through the speakers.

The storm has stopped, the sun is shining, morning has broken,

He pushes down on the accelerator, bound for a new home,

A home filled with music and dancing; rhythm and joy,

A place where music will never be silenced, no matter what prevails.