How Music Began

David Young 35 HOW MUSIC BEGAN / David Young Well the wind blew so hard that the sea blistered and snapped. Even the boulders were squeaking. Trolls scuffled and spat, whacking thick bones on hollow oaks, screaming for meat, and birds nattered in every thicket. Women in birthpangs howled. Bitter couples shattered cups, jugs and beakers, while children slithered on ice among grit and cinders. Then thunder set off the landslide. Bushes with dead birds tumbled through blasted air. You couldn't hear how bones and trees were splintered, how boulders struck sparks, how the ice burst, taking some of the children. The quiet grew up. Like cave pools, cocoons. Like very old temples at noon. Nursing. Fruitfall. Sketching the buffalo. And then it was easy to consider smoke a bird twisting up that might sing as the earth got smaller. ...