kotekan*

*(a musical term for sophisticated interlocking parts in Balinese Gamelan music played by two different instruments that gives the illusion of a perpetual flow of sound.)

by india southgate.

 
We speak in giggles,
And we sound like,
Warblers by the stream.
"Kotekan," they tell me,
"Is a skill that takes time to master,
The inhuman speed,
Where there is no margin for error."
But we are beyond that now.
If we could be anywhere else,
Where would we be?
They teach me that everything sings.
But it takes two every time.
The bird crafts its complex chattering's,
from a set of two vocal cords,
that fire off simultaneously,
operating from an energy reserve, 
that lets the other fill the space if needed.
They call it a syrinx.
That's why they sing.
Some say that it is redundant,
To have a self-oscillating system,
Buried deep into your chest,
When you have a larynx.
Many organisms have a larynx,
But they do not sing with it.
They moo, bark, cry with it,
But they do not sing.
I know why I sing.
It is because everything is listening,
But you can pretend that it is not,
Well enough to think that you are not there at all.
For a minute, for a day or for as long as the note rings out,
Until there is nothing else left in your lungs.
You can believe that you truly are gone,
And it is just the music that's left.
We are in the interval.
We could have been motors, pistons pushing out sound,
Electronics emanating a barely audible hum,
Cymbals in Tibetan monasteries,
Axis extremes required for a sine wave to dance,
Waves crashing on the shore,
A clock ticking,
It's arms perpetually chasing each other,
In every life;
Coins in pockets,
Birds in rhythm,
Atoms in spring. 
She teaches me that everything should sing.
What is life with one hand clapping?
What is life with every other second missing?
What is a sound without silence?
What am I if she is not with me?

[unpublished]

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