Strings
While I sighed for a brother
the form in the fastened box
waited out the years.
My father looked away.
Why was I not a boy?
So I had sons
and at last my father smiled.
My hair grew grey
the black box turned grey with dust
and my sons moved away.
When visitors came in, my father said,
“Do you play the violin?”
but no one played for him.
My father died and what could I do
with the closed case of his youth
and the shape that never spoke?
Finally a stranger came
who opened the coffin of the child
without a name
and made a wild singing
start from the silent heart.
I looked across the dark wood
to where my father
stood and smiled.
My brother, I am too old
to learn to play. Back again
into your black coffin.
What will become of us now
your ageless power confined
this room we share
and my dead father standing there?
Virginia Hamilton Adair
