Violining. a poem by Catherine Zickgraf

Violining

Gusts blow wild sky off its clothes line,
and fog soaks into my coat.
I lift the gate latch, enter under 
a canopy of greens and into the courtyard.	

I stay this January in Carmen de la Victoria,
the stone and oak guest house 
of the Universidad de Granada. 
Halfway up the river valley,
I come home to the ghosts of former guests. 

I’m comfy now in a dry sweater.
The ladies feed me fish soup and red wine. 
This pale afternoon I settle into the dining room,
facing windows that gaze down the hill.

Across the river, the Alhambra is wrapped in storms.
It’s been enduring erosion from rain flowing 
down its foundation of mud cliffs. 
This Moorish castle—
pride of Granada’s generations,
its fountains cycling centuries of water—
will one day slide into the Darro.

Fed full and warm, I could nap
but instead climb the brick back stairs 
toward the sound of strings.  
A corridor echoes in its floor boards, up its tall walls.
The visiting violinist has invited me
to the conservatory in his temporary domicile. 

Lower levels fall quiet each after-lunch siesta 
while daily he labors in a lofty corner
of the Andalusian mansion.  
His violin lures me toward his quarters.
I follow the stairs in their cases, past a history of faces.  
A mahogany door stops the steps 
at the room in Carmen’s tower. 

I hear a furious stirring of his ceiling atmosphere.
Song streams through the keyhole.
Perhaps his abode holds a broad forest of attackers
at whom he aims notes with precision. 

Or maybe he stands steering his bed 
through a storm of distraction.
In there, leaning into his bow, 
he could be soothing the swell 
of floor-flooding disorder. 

Under his door his spirit overflows,
and I yearn for an art, a talent, 
the desire to work at something.
I’m haunting the halls, 
brought here by my dawning aspirations.

His room sounds full of Ancients
once traveling the Spanish paths.
They inspire this violinist into discipline.
May they immortalize him one day into stone.

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Two lifetimes ago, Catherine Zickgraf performed her poetry in Madrid. Now her main jobs are to write and hang out with her family. Her work has appeared in Pank, Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Grief Diaries. Her chapbook, Soul Full of Eye, is published through Aldrich Press. Find her on twitter @czickgraf. Watch/read more at www.caththegreat.blogspot.com

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