Bones
Note; From Mullaney; Reformation of Emotions; April 10, 1549…..400 years of bones dug up and discarded outside the city of London, then covered with sewage and city waste. “to sever the link between the living and the dead” pp 10
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We erase the dead.
What humanity is left to us when it is only the present moment that matters?
Perhaps this is the flaw in Buddhist philosophy to live and be in the moment is to have no past and no future ~ in that case are we truly human?
When all of life is an illusion, what is is ~ is no longer true.
How is illusion the truth to be lived by? or how does one build a life knowing it is an illusion?
~
I walked across the unhallowed ground, steam, from feces, urine, dead animals, the rotting waste of the great city, rises around me shaping ghosts, swirls reaching out but never meeting,my face or self.
It is our time, the dead destroyed ripped from ancestral memory lay below but….
~
As a master maker I seek the cleanest, best of what is left.
A femur sticks out of the waste, firm, fast, not yet whitened, not dry now though days ago it laid with the rest of that soul’s parts — dry and flesh dusted, shroud disintegrated.
The stevedores, months from now, still hacking up brown bits ~ a shortened life those men, well paid that day.
The alewives profited.
The wives at home had some food to serve until it was gone then he was gone.
That job did not result in good health for the carters or the country either.
But we all die, so no pity to waste on this field.
~
My bundle is of femurs, ulnae and tibiae.
No officer will come and stop me but I do not wish to be seen, the tricks of the trade, secrets of my art, that’s what I wish to keep.
The instruments I build are valued, their origins I prefer to keep to myself.
The metalwork of silver and gold, is a basic secret; I, no one, wish to be robbed.
I give no cause to intruders, what I hold is kept to myself.
~
The carving of runes and clovers, the symbols of cranes or lions; each joint is first carved then faced with silver, fitted so no air can escape.
The tuning? that is a trick, as a set must all play as one, an inside nick or scratch can change a note one octave from the next and unless it is a reed, there is no fix and my labour neatly discarded to the wandering busker who will not care and their audience, passing by quickly, not notice.
But I would, and shrink at the false sound ringing painfully in my ears into my chest, squeezing my heart.
~
I carry my load in darkness to my shop.
In the morning light I examine each piece, discarding many ~ strange rags for the ragmen but the fee I pay seals lips.
That night I brought 50 pieces home.
Over the next months each is cleaned dried polished, the solid ends cut off, the insides smoothed, and cleaned then dried again.
At first, smelly work, the neighbors would complain, but they believe I am a bit of Orpheus. I have not disabused them of it. They either keep clear or insincerely act friendly.
I hoped to have an apprentice but no one in town is interested in the musical arts except to drink, dance and sing.
So I work alone.
Orpheus, there may be a bit of truth to it….
~
The bones of 10 April had no names.
If I had robbed a grave or even a charnel house, I might have found a name or family to attach to each but that is not so, strewn in a mad rush to desecrate St. Paul’s there was no order to this.
One long thigh bone, I was able to fashion into a 3 jointed clarinet, long before that Denner fellow (who I should not know as he comes along 130 years later than now. How I know this will remain another mystery.)
The reed cut from a stream’s rushes, the joints chased in gold, the Welsh Knot, royal hunting dogs all carved into the ivory (for all bone is ivory).
The bone bleached to white and red beetroot rubbed into the etchings.
Some keys to ease the reach for certain notes, a spring attached (unseen) beneath the plate covering.
Proud of my ingenuity, prouder that it sounded true and could be played with finesse if skilled.
The Lord who came to buy something — bought it — for a year’s worth of silver.
Then hired me to teach his house musician how best to play.
For a month I resided in his manor until the musician was acquainted with the instrument’s abilities.
I left with more silver in my pocket, back to my work satisfied.
~
A year later I heard that the manor had burned to the ground- arsonists, perhaps catholics or other religionists, not my business.
The musician had survived and was now a traveller.
Rumours came my way.
~
There was a square in London Town near but not too near St. Paul’s and the musician set his box on the ground and a hat at his feet.
He began to play, mostly common jigs, reels, and slides.
Some gathered round or paused a bit, a few coppers for the pleasure.
But some stopped and could not leave, their brethren were also so afflicted or, if not stone, began to dance. Then all their kinfolk joined in as if compelled.
When the time came for the musician to stop and pass the hat, he was well paid.
The dancers though, passed as if from a daze.
All were related and all began to cry in the mourning, weeping way for members of the clan who were no more.
They sat at a table, each calling out a name, a son, daughter, cousin, grandfather, remembering things about them that they could not possibly know.
Dredged, as it were, from deep ancestral memory.
~
One day the musician came to me asked if he could exchange the instrument for another.
He said the burden of the dead was too much for him to bear.
I gave him something of oak and warned him not to play in the forest or a wooded glen.
I have heard that he was found beneath a fallen tree, his limbs scattered.