Violin romance

I knew from the first moment
we would find a voice, a way to sing,
you just wood and string
without me, I a reaching
in space, a breath between notes
without you.

I knew how the singing
would be, like a kite on air,
a running like a wild child
into sea.

I wonder now about the mystery
in your wood, if you mourn the forest
where you were, if the wine-brown memory
in your grain holds all the singing
we have done, all the ways we have
reached for new notes,
all the ways we have found our place.

 

Jane Spiro