spoken intro One child takes up a handful of grain soaked in brine and begins like a baby animal, yipping small sounds that grow to yelps, loping around the perimeter of the children. When she breaks back into the gathered group and looses the howl of a wild girl nearly coyote, it is fur she feels as she touches her own skin. Wheeling, she throws the grain over her head that will sprout stunted and scattered in the spring, shaded from sunlight and far from the combine’s turn, and the others follow her, scooping brackish handfuls from the basin and flinging them to the sky. The children’s howls slip the net of leaves. Wild as a pack of dogs, they pass the pecan leaf canopy, make off for the limestone ledges, the creek banks jutting out from under themselves to deep water where snakes live. Away flee the ghosts of the land from their rotted stumps filled with rainwater and from their thorn trees and dim cedar copses. Gone are the night birds from their nests in the chaff, and gone are the wild spirits that haunt unnamed places and misremembered hollows. The girl on her haunches in this small clearing hollowed out of darkness incants without words the song Odysseus himself must have sung to his mariners just freed from their animal selves. Gathered nearby, the children croon their languageless lament, crying to the conjurers of the world a noise unheard since the confusion of tongues. Why have you denied us, they plead, The animal forms which are so rightfully ours? [Verse 1] One child scoops brine-soaked grain [WHUMP] in her palm She starts like a cub [yip yip] small, sharp sounds Then they swell [AH-OOO] into yelps She lopes the ring of children [thud-thud] soft feet, hard breath When she breaks back in the howl comes loose [Chorus] Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [CALL] the animal form the right kind of bone Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [REPLY] we were wild first we were wild first [Verse 2] Half coyote now she feels fur at her skin [wuuuh] it rises wild in the ribs She wheels and flings the grain over her head [SHHHRRK] seeds in the air to sprout stunted in spring Far from the combine far from its mouth [Verse 3] The rest follow close scooping from the basin [CLACK] hands full of brine then up to the sky Their howls slip the net of leaves [HOOO-HAH] over pecans Wild as a pack they pass the canopy bound for limestone ledges and creek banks jutting deep [Chorus] Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [CALL] the animal form the right kind of bone Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [REPLY] we were wild first we were wild first [Verse 4] Snakes coil below [sssshh] in the water-shadow Night birds scatter from nests in the chaff [FLAP-FLAP] gone in a flash The ghosts of the land back away from rotted stumps pooled with rainwater from thorn trees, from cedar from hollows with no name [Verse 5] On her haunches now in the small clearing hollowed out of darkness she sings without words [OOO-AAA] a sea-song shape for sailors set free Around her, the children croon a language-less lament [boom] to the makers of forms to the conjurers of the world [Chorus] Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [CALL] the animal form the right kind of bone Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [REPLY] we were wild first we were wild first [Bridge] A noise unheard since the breaking of tongues [THUNDERCRACK] Why have you denied us the fur, the snout, the run Why have you denied us the yelp, the leap, the blood [Final Chorus] Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [CALL] the animal form the right kind of bone Why have you denied us Why have you denied us [REPLY] we were wild first we were wild first
