The Cello - Stephen Mitchell

 It rests inside its close-fitting red-velvet-lined case
the way medieval monks slept inside their coffins.
But it doesn't meditate on death; it has already died,
and barely remembers sunlight, water, the wind among
the branches.
It lies there in the dark, feeling all through its graceful curves
the memory of a hundred years of music,
and sometimes dreaming of heaven: the Bach suites.

Taken out to be played, it knows that by itself it is nothing,
that it would be incapable of producing a single note
even it it were a Stradivarius.

So it gladly assents to having its strings tightened,
painful thought it is; it wants to be perfectly in tune,
stretched to its utmost but not straining.
When it feels ready, it leans back and waits
for the bow to be drawn across,
for the resonance to fill it completely.

Stephen Mitchell
from - Parables and Portraits

With thanks to The Beauty We Love

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Photo - via The Beauty We Love