43. A Young Jewish Girl Takes The Violin

       A Young Jewish Girl Takes The Violin

               (for Francis and Diane Klein)

 

Take this precious thing with your fluttering fingers,

take this grown shape in your lengthening hands,

take it and hold it,

take it as your own--

                           its brittleness like the brittleness

of bone, its  hollowness like that

of bone, its thinness like

starved bone--

                    and do not ask

what marrow might be inside

its casket--

               love

your lovely little fiddle, your doll which won’t

wet, but if you practice faithfully will someday

cry real tears.

                  This desert of dried wood

with its briefly inhabitable oases is all

the Promised Land, your wandering bow an Ark

of Covenants:

                   when you are done, remain

to bow, for you are not alone, but nation.