REED-MAKING
for Cormac
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
Blaise Pascal
A strip of cane is whittled, gouged thin,
cut in two;
its concave sides are held together;
tapered ends bound, with waxed thread,
to a brass funnel,
then fitted into a chanter.
If one turns out well
and is played in
by a fine musician,
the lips of the reed
will come to vibrate in sympathy,
and all things will flow through them --
joy, grief, despair, and again, joy --
stories told in secret to a tree;
told to a reed;
carried back on a channel of air
into life's bright rooms.
What generates music?
Gouged, bound wood,
or wind, or breath,
playing on a tension between
what is bound and what is free --
wind blows across the holes in a hollow steel gate,
and blood leaps in response --
a hare alerted in tall grass.
--Moya Cannon
