Instruments

A song dwells in a singer's lungs,

Not in notes or staff.

It moves through hands that beat on drums,

Never lives until it's sung.

It plucks the finger, not the string.

It blows through breath, not brass,

It rides through wind on angels' wings,

Can pass through hearts like glass.

It's limited by the measure and rhyme

That lives inside a space

In the moment between the pluck of steel string

And the slap of the upright wood bass.

A song's in the singer, not in the song.

It's held in guitar player's hand.

It kisses a room, as a bride does her groom.

It pumps through the hearts of the band.

A song that's recorded is trapped like a beast

That's held in a cage at a zoo.

Unleash it--and run--or on us he'll feast,

And we will become the song, too.

A song doesn't live in plastic or page.

It dwells in the singer who sings.

It's beauty not measured by the bars of its cage

But how to its freedom it springs.