Sound of Music

At the Sign of Concordance

We arrive in automobiles
conveyed from city intersections
and airport concourses,
on a winding road
that ends at three rocks
splashed by the Pacific.

We come for strange music:
not pop or classical, not
techno, rap, house, emo, folk, trance
nor any of that ilk.
What we play needs at least a sentence
perhaps a paragraph to describe.

What we love needs even more room to explain.
Music yes, but also the way the sun
hits the face after a fortnight of rain,
the way we greet each other like distant relatives,
also the Sitka spruce, and elk,
and  Salmon River, S-curving to the sea.

What we do is very simple.
We take air sweetened by violets and alder,
wiggle our fingers and blow;
into story and meditation,
into history and dance.  We are magicians,
changing oxygen into happiness.

5/2/11
At the Wind and Waves Recorder Workshop