Like many other twelve year old boys with thoughts of rock star status, I too dreamed of such things as I taught myself to play my sister’s guitar. Unfortunately, I was too much a lover of acoustic music to make much of a run at the smoke and sweat-filled tour bus mystique. I was too bookish, intense and eclectic to fit nicely into most single strata rock bands. And, perhaps most importantly, I was far too afraid of girls for the groupie thing to ever be an issue. But I love the instrument. I love the sounds it makes. I love when those sounds and the instrument meet together at the insistence of my own probing hands. This is a short poetic tribute to a favorite instrument of mine…and apparently many others.

* * * * *

Like hand and Hand stretched across a Renaissance ceiling,

hand meets hand in effortless motion,

too lithe to care what darkness inspires this happy tune.

Finger kisses finger just far enough apart to spike the yearning.

From whence come these doleful sounds,

these cries of joyful anguish?

They twist and writhe, competing for space

and steal the air with deft amusement.

From careful pause, adroit motion, and artful thrust

come strains unstrained; music feigning perfection, deigning imperfection.

Yet still it comes, music for ears made perfect –

singed,

soothed,

satisfied.