Fiddle

The silver light that dances on your strings

Runs like melting snow from knotted twigs,

Burning the greying hours with fire-spun wings

And stirring a pith of words into your melody.

The groined and vaulted ceiling of your song

Measures the sky with swift and anxious feet,—

O supple as white oak staves your balladry.

You are the strident lute, the harp upon the hill

Lighting veins of clay against the chimney’s breast.

You are unspoken pain, spurned words that fill

The heart to bursting in a thorny cove.

And you can dance a lively galliard at your will,

Or turn again with sudden blossoming bow

To a cardinal flaming in a redbud grove.