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Poem from:

Ghostlight - New & Selected Poems by Mark Granier

Granier, Mark

— 38,000 BC

Fitting to see the oldest airs

salvaged from a raptor — the air

of its wing — and there is music

in our bodies, drums and strings,

wind instruments fulfilling themselves

so blood and sweat sings

to surfaces, half-blinding those eyes

lost in the swing of a scythe,

a notched sword, the haulage

of hominid arms through foliage —

music that runs like sap

back to the root

of our species jogging on the spot

wired to an iPhone — chants, field hollers,

deafening wars, silences — the body

bearing the mind away

with riffs, keys, tones, variations

on what’s in us and what will come

to blow through our bones.

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