Musician

Her pursed lips, hands just so,
delicate set of jaw and poise
of posture, one leg so lightly leading
(as if impatient to stride forward),
the way apple and flowers lean in
as if to listen--these tell me
music is being made,

but, ah, this is a cold, chalky light
(light of hours and hours of practice),
wall, mirror and end table dusted with it,
bow strings rosined with it--

It makes me think of the smell and screee!
of chalk pressed awry against blackboard,
of how a violist draws bow across string,
how easily scrapes and creaks in jerky
stops and starts, with what exacting effort

from friction makes liquid music flow
(as so seldom from blackboards teachers
have reached out to kindle dreams),

a miracle, akin to (out of light, dirt
and water) an apple, a flower, something
from less than nothing, for our taut strings
and varnished wood--and oil paint
and words are all, not instruments,

but impedimenta (for the fun of it)
to dreams, we--only we--being such stuff
as dreams are made of.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002