A Portrait from Memory

With tortured brow she tucks the violin
On a soft violet collar under her chin,
Laying her cheek like a child’s
On the black cold ebony;
She gazes at the bow gliding from frog to tip
As if she sees the melody
Singing from the wood
Take form and grown into the room,
A presence of dimension and grace
That settles like a friend in the gloom
And softens the frown from her face.


An undated work in the vicinity of letters from Robert and other poems from the early 1970s.