The Fiddler’s Eye

Groove Camp 2004 (photo © Kathy Joyce)

The Fiddler’s Eye 

© Donna Hébert, 1995, all rights reserved

 

Saturday night dance 

fiddle and bow in hand 

tools of my trade 

Rockin’ rhythms 

Grease up that bow, girl, 

lay into it 

until she wails, 

cries out in a surrogate voice 

our pain and ecstasy 

speaks the monster’s lines 

lulls our babes 

to sleep sweet dreams 

 

Ah, my Victorian lady, 

your impossible waist 

harbors modern tones 

among the old. . . 

Each time I play you 

new things happen 

inside us both. . . 

 

Knitted up whole 

in a tune-trance, 

time slips sideways 

I enter the music, 

become it 

dance inside the tune 

on the edge, 

balancing, 

reaching for rhythms 

to bounce off dancers 

who anticipate me, 

bounce my beat 

Back         

   Back 

        Back 

 

This is a duet 

Dancers and music 

locked in 

perpetual motion 

until . . . 

Entropy disproven - 

Community reassured - 

We alight together 

on new ground