Vulture Bone Flute
— 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.
The Next Best Thing
is the aroma-therapy candle in the bathroom at the end
of a car-burning estate,
the instinct to breathe in, suspend
judgement and keep the (above all lowercase) faith —
metaphysics of streetlights coming on
gradually, each flicker like an echoey cough,
pink at first as the rosy winter dawn
that will see them off —
finding we are each other’s
strangers who stop in their tracks in the night
to stoop and kneel and murmur
to another: ‘It’s alright love, it’s alright’ —
Copyright © Mark Granier 2017
