Very infrequently I try to write a poem about something and even though I know it is so blindingly romantic (my default style) and has so far to go, it often stirs me because it makes me think and feel more deeply about a certain thing. So it was with this poem below, which needs a title...
And why does the fiddle music strike
At the very heart and soul of me?
How can the small band by the fire
Send my spirit leaping to the raftered roof?
A cool evening with the four strings dancing
Transports me over the lake, over the snow-clad mountain.
A viola and a player with a new song
Plants me with such deep contentment in my chair
That I think I will stay there forever.
If I feel all is not lost, it is because of this family music,
An absolute affirmation, a blood memory coursing far back
To the poor days when so much was desirable
And so little was possible, possibly
As far back as a Russian village in the evening
When the fiddles came out.
This music is mine. There is no note too humble
That it does not please me
Beyond reason.
Beyond the moment, beyond all cultural memory,
That it does not catapult me, in fact, into deep delight.
I called this one "King of the World" just because in spite of James Cameron's famous faux pas when he won for Titanic, there is some chutzpah in it that I like and it's kind of the way I feel when I'm swimming at Sarson's all alone on a summer evening. But I guess it needs a better title, seeing as how I'm female and all.
I swam as the sun set
And the moon rose over the smoky hills
I rested my cheek on the smooth skin of the lake
As I stroked –
Pick an apple, put it in the basket –
Until only a rosy glow was left of the sun
Then gold, then apricot in the darkening sky
I lay arms outstretched on the liquid gold, glossy with sunset
Its palette of blues washed onto the evening hills.
Things happened:
Boats roared back to the launch for the night
A family posed for photos on the beach
A dragonfly bisected the sky briefly, then a gull
But they were for context only, stage business,
As the world revolved
Slowly around the water and me.
