Judy Clarence

Bone Flute
 
Go back five thousand decades.
One of us finds a cave bear bone,
a femur, from the same hard stuff
that holds our flesh together. It’s
 
broken, bear brought down
by some larger beast. One of us
looks in the broken end. Hollow.
Breath breathed in comes right out.
 
A tube. Thought. Five clear-cut holes
scraped clean with sharp stone.
Our finder, lips formed in 0,
blows in an open end,
 
plants fingers on the fabricated
holes, smiles, becomes a bird. And then
another, different bird. And now: wind!
A crying child. Sound after sound!
 
Five hundred centuries blown
to now. Small girl in sneakers,
and expensive jeans with holes
plays a complicated silver-plated thing
 
with holes, keys, lip-plate, head tube,
chimney. Her thighbone leads her foot tap,
heartbeats of Souza in her school band.
One of us is pleased. Again. And smiles.
 

Judy Clarence, a retired academic librarian, currently lives with her daughter, grandchildren, two cats and a dog in the Sierra (California) foothills after many years in Berkeley. She plays violin (baroque and modern) in several orchestras and chamber groups, has sung in many classical choruses, and writes poetry almost constantly. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Persimmon Tree, Amarillo Bay, Shot Glass Journal, Allegro, Quill & Parchment, Tigershark, and Blue Unicorn, among other publications. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.