Fiddler’s Grace Notes
I swished around the womb
luxuriating as you played,
sonorous, resonate,
bow across the strings
that long, round note
and when I was born,
sound circled my tiny shell ears
melodies, crisp spiccato
from a meteor—
these, my childhood poems.
Your passion
your innate virtuosic charisma
each delicate grace note —
an angel’s giggle
You love trying
different fiddles, in shops heady
with scents of sap-based rosin
and wood glue, gingerly play
a Strad, a moment.
Even at 94, violin under your chin—
hearing dulled
you rattle off cadenzas
pacing the floor, flashy
You always find the spot
on the D string with your middle finger,
the one smashed in a car door
when you were a kid
The bluntness of that
finger, stub with no nail,
radiating from your core
a lush vibrato.
….
This poem is from the chapbook Humming Beneath the Mist by ABBY LUBY (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/humming-beneath-the-mist-by-abby-luby/
Abby Luby is a writer and journalist who lives in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley. Her published short stories appear in Parhelion and Persimmon Tree and her poetry has been published in Syncopation Literary Journal and Third Street Review. As a journalist she has reported for The New York Daily News, SolveClimateNews, The Villager, The Real Deal, The Examiner News, Hook Magazine, Valley Table Magazine, and Edible Hudson Valley. She is an accomplished cellist with a Bachelor of Arts degrees in Applied Cello and Journalism from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Luby attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City and graduated with an Applied Music Certificate (Cello) and Regents Diploma Humming Under the Mist is Luby’s first published book of poetry.
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