Notes rise like smoke

choking out all others

with the rough hands

of time and tragedy.

Their beautiful hums

sing a sustained song,

peering with insistent gaze

into hearty souls

and soulish hearts.

Broken teeth still chatter

with the bite of loss

and the taste of pain.

But this broad sound

rises to the occasion

like no other.

A land, many times stolen,

is the only crucible fit

to shape this enduring

roar, this brutish beauty.

She, soaked in brine of peat

and multicolored limbs,

snorts in stoic disregard

for all that dares

impede the moorish march

of belief in yesterdays.

Any old fool can pose

a lust for tunish repast

‘round doilied tables of tea and greed,

disgust of the rich, the divas of demand.

Not this sweet savage,

not this tumble down lullaby

haunt of kings, joke of ghosts.

In her misty-eyed song

you’ll find no sorrys,

just…