Microlith Music by Adam Horovitz

These are the teeth we pulled
from the jaws of the past;
a handful of pinned notes,
their shadows cast as piano sharps
and flats on a museum wall.

Behold: twenty two
segments of suspended time.

Once, they were tools for survival,
for making and undoing.
Keys to a life run hard
beneath looping symphonies
of sun’s rise, seasons shift.

Now, a long diminuendo
of light and blood lingers
in each arrow- and spear-head,
each vicious harpoon barb
caught in soft-spun light.

Behind glass, each slivered note
of this fossilised music resonates

with a song of life-in-death, death-in-life.
A capella only, but still ready for an aria.
For orchestras of wood and leather to bind
these barbs of quick despatch back in
to the brutal music of their making.


© 2022 Chris Cundy & Adam Horovitz
Archaeology of the Ear is partnered with Corinium Museum and Resonance 104.4FM
Supported by Help Musicians and Arts Council England