Structure & Surprise

Before it is seared into wood-wild rage,

a violin lives as both horse and tree.

Its treble cry holds memories of pulp

and root. Its sloped hips remember the race

through a leaf’s narrow veins. Here a crow cleaned

his beak; there an owl turned its neck. Even

before music, the rosin did its work—

plugged the injured bark, froze the bugs

in place, loosened and dripped in a kiln’s

rude heat, then settled into a hard pack

for the bow’s slip and slur, gliss of scree,

fine stones of sound in each long hair. Wood joined

with tall oil, rosin, and steel to hold sound:

a sun above the warmed field, a wide knife’s

slow release, a horse’s desire for rhythm,

its pounding hooves, its deep brown ribs, its haunch

and slope. A violin almost pulls itself

apart, longing for what it was, not unlike

my father as he stood by the open mailbox,

reading my brother’s first letter home.

—by Joanne Diaz

“Violin” first appeared in Prairie Schooner (Spring 2002).