The Heart's Archaeology

On some fundless expedition,

you discover it beneath

a pyracantha bush

carved from the hip bone

of a long-extinct herbivore

that walked the plains on legs

a story tall. An ocarina of bone

drilled and shaped laboriously

with tools too soft to be efficient

by one primitive musician

spending night after night

squatting by the fire.

No instrument of percussion:

place this against your lips,

fill it from your lungs to sound

a note winding double helix, solo

and thready calling to the pack.