So He Made New Instruments

It’s why he hollowed the trunk of a fallen tree to strike with sacred limbs
A beat akin to his brand new heart thumping, and footsteps on the dark path
that weaved past the water. At last, to a woman.

He draped dried gourds with cowrie shell nets. And shook out a shuffle.
We heard brush scraping shins, and the rush as he went chest-pounding
on the 2 and breathing out on the 4.

Wildest sounds wailed and sung with this banging of drums
So our bones, not our brains, could decode them
with rumbles below and a river of tones we grew closer to knowing what love is.

Add a trumpet, an alarm, shrieks of fiery-necked night jars
Spike-fiddle bowing, Kora harp droning for the sweeping emotion he feels
“I made new instruments for speaking,” he shouted. “Because our tongues are too weak to hold the weight of the words.”

And so we clapped. Together. Born into this rhythm of romance. The hum of our organs, the strum of guitars, electric. The record, the radio, computer and synth. The crooner drawling “darlin” with hints of heaven and hangover. Then the orchestra swells. Because a man can't describe a woman.