National Poetry Month 1 of 30: Violin

April is National Poetry Month.  Again this year, inspired by Mary Lee Hahn, I'm going to join other poetry bloggers (view links in sidebar) taking the challenge to share poetry each day during the month of April.  For thirty days my hope is to write a new poem each day.  The first two years I took this challenge I wrote any poem that found me.  This year, however, I've decided to try to write a poem about an object each day.  

My purpose is threefold:

1. To provide poem mentors for my students.
2. To move myself away from my love of nature poems to try writing about something different.
3. To improve my photo taking on my phone.

If you've read Billy Collins' poem, The Lanyard, you may have noticed the way he took an object to tell a much more meaningful story of his relationship with his mother.  My hope is to find the deeper significance in the things around me.

Violin

This violin 

now rests 

in my basement,

tucked 

in a closet,

on top 

of boxes,

where it sits 

alone.

I've never 

played.

Never 

wanted 

to play,

Yet

I couldn't 

let the violin 

go.

The violin

used to hang, years ago,

in my grandfather's basement,

above the cement floor,

near his work bench,

close to the tools 

which occupied 

his hands.

He often told 

the story of years of lessons:

the required discipline,

the endless practice, 

his voice told me he didn't love this time,

but it was still somehow significant

in ways he didn't understand then,

but perhaps had come to understand, 

as is often the case,

in the years that followed.  

Though its strings are missing,

it still plays music.

It whispers lyrics

of stories from long ago

of days with

grandpa.

© Cathy L. Mere, 2014