Resonance
In the evening Dakotah music and stories:
Sitting around a resounding drum of elk skin,
Seven musicians beat the edges softly as the lead singer
Calls out a melody, full of notes no notation could capture.
Slurring up and down the scale,
The notes echo in louder voices
The drum starts sharply at the sides
Then resonantly in the middle, pounding like
The beating of a giant heart, shaking our own.
The “Happy Birthday” pounds distinctly
[Click twice on “Happy Birthday 4” sung for Mark Michel]
Voices and drum boom and our hearts rumble in harmony
Finally drop, as the sticks drift back on the edges
Answering voices lower and lower.
The music continues like soft yodeling
We settle in rest and safety.