Summer 2015: Poetry
Chief Joseph's Flute
by Stella Jeng Guillory
Roaming across the Zumwalt Prairie, I play my flute. The Nez Perce know I am coming when a tune with my key approaches. I play the flute I carved from yellow cedar. The fetish block on my flute portrays a thunderbird that guards and directs my breath. I play the flute I carved for myself. It suits me when my right and left hands are bent and the distance between the mouth piece and the finger holes is according to my own constellation. It creates the key fitting my height, my way of slightly leaning forward. The Nez Perce know I am returning when a tune with my key approaches. My tombstone says my name, Hin-Mah-Too-Yah-Lat-Kekt, Thunder Rolling Down the Mountains.
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