Instrumental Mythology

Dragon lungs blow through bamboo.
Not every piper of reeds
Is curly chinned with goat feet,

And there were older cases,
Other places, songs with tales
Inside them about the winds,

The ancestors, the spirits,
Whatever blew through the grass,
Made forests moan, whoever

Pierced the first marrowless bone
Or hollowed out an antler
To hum as an aerophone,

Mythic before historic,
Each legend about the facts
From legends before the fact—

If the world can be hollowed,
If waves roar through the tunnels,
One of you would channel them

To sing a spooky story
About beautiful monsters,
Crooned in the tones of the wind.