click here to hear Adele Graf read "Harmonious Arc"
Harmonious Arc
my concert companion Frank always arrives
last minute, just as the music starts
but I don’t mind since
he needs no seat, happy to hover overhead—
lulled as we share the sound’s perennial splendour
through raised hairs on my skin
he grasps even more nuanced pitch and phrases
now that his ear bones and cavity have lost their
muffle of former flesh
violinist Frank silently explains old techniques
that burnish the tone, then I wordlessly brief him on
this century’s performance style
he describes Mischa Elman’s playing to me; I tell him of Gil Shaham
but mostly we form a harmonious arc from the stage
through his air to my seat
once my grandfather Frank’s small immigrant body
stood each day in his corner store, his large ears
straining toward melody
his mind rode horseback through Latvian pines
his fingers recalled violin tunes, as heawaited
his annual concert treat—
early 1900s, nickel carfare to Carnegie Hall, standing room high
above the stage to hear Mischa Elman, whose feats he later recounted
for his clustered family—
now this man I never met, barely know about, soars to see
his love of music still alive in me, while I, who can attend
fine concerts on a whim
listen as Frank, skimming his dead century, tags along
in case one day he plucks his own ethereal strings
or bows me his own song
