My attention was grasped by a woman playing a long whistle,
so heavy it dragged along the floor,
the notes so large
one of the holes couldn't be covered with a finger pad, or palm, or calf,
so she pressed her face into it.
It reverberated so deeply that it produced textures
not melodies.

Curious, how she could play an instrument trice her size,
requiring thirty lungs to produce a single note,
I asked her not to gatekeep, to share her secrets, but no - she was not fickle

As she returned to face the gaping cave,
I thought:
What did she face? Shadows? Warm humidity?
And what lungpower was needed to blow into the fipple? A society? An extended family?

© Eva Irvine