Students of the Strings

If my guitar could only talk: A personification poem

STUDENTS OF THE STRINGS
August 15, 2006


The guitar sits in its case leaning
back deeply into the plush blue
lining and speaks about harmony,
rhythm, and dreams unfulfilled by
inadequate dreamers. It whispers
in its most electrifying voice through
its F sound holes. Your past, it says,
your youth, is in the songs; the pebble’s
crunch, the barnyard scents, the
sough of autumn; it’s in the strings.

Your fingers tell it all; the snap of
ice on clear winter nights that
reverberate and tremble off
arpeggios as your thumb slowly
pulls each cat-gut vocal chord and
lets it thrumming go. The instrument
nods its cerise head, bends its sparkling
carmine neck, then snuggles comfortably
into the thin cushion of its case and speaks
about students of the strings.