Poems

The first horn is hard, a shell of its kind when you see it.
The first horn is angry, they said—others said bitter.
The first horn is weary, tired of being called strong.

There it goes, now announced, looking weak.
It says, “I’ve taken everyone’s voice in, but who hears mine?”
Picked up, it says, “I’m lost now; I don’t know myself anymore.”
The owners look at it and say, “This can’t be ours.
This one is full of so much anger and passion, nothing like what we knew.”

The first horn, unrecognizable even to itself, says,
“I don’t know where to direct this.”
On its blow every night, awaiting its maker’s answers—
Someone to explain why it was built so hard and strong on the outside,
Waiting for the maker, or someone, to touch it,
To know just how weak it is on the inside.
Waiting for its owner to touch and tell it how to blow,
Out of fear of blowing too hard and hurting the ears of those it’s meant to call.
Out of fear of blowing too soft and not reaching those who need to hear.

The first horn feels more lost because those that fixed it are clueless now.
The materials used to make it now feel quite unfamiliar.
When they blow on it, it seems to break.
They say, “It’s just burnt out.”
Others say, “It’s useless,” or, “It’s changed.”

But this old horn has served them all.
Each came with a blow and left their voice heard.
Now, it doesn’t work anymore, so the owners leave it out in the cold.
It feels scared and doesn’t want to be thrown out for another owner to pick.
It’s scared of just being put in the house as decor,
Even though, deep down, the horn knows it doesn’t want to be used anymore.
Deep down, it hopes that it won’t be found by the next owner,
Even though its deepest fear is being useless.

You see, the materials the horn is accustomed to—
The ones that have grown to love the horn, and the horn loves them—
It feels like it doesn’t fit in anymore, though it tries daily to be its old self again.
Nothing seems to work, and in frustration, the materials whisper:
“Doesn’t it love us anymore? Doesn’t it understand us anymore?”
But the horn hears them, and sorrow overtakes its insides.
It says, “I’ve grown old and tired.
But how could they understand?
All my life, I’ve been built by you.
All my life, I thought you needed me, but little did I know I would one day need you.”
And now, when all comes down, it feels like they don’t understand its pain.
The materials, too, are in pain, because the indifference is becoming clearer.
The horn says, “You may never understand,
Because you are just the materials that were used to build me,
But I was the horn—USED by many.”

And so, in fear of separation, they all choose to understand
That you cannot serve only one in this walk called life.
That sometimes, things do grow apart,
But the truth lies in what they hold within.
And so, the materials tell the horn:
“Even in another world, we would still love you.
Even at your darkest moments, we will still hold you.”
For it’s not what the horn did for them, but the treasure was always in what it was—
A First Horn.