VENGEROV'S VIOLIN

9 4 Y V E N G E R O V ’ S V I O L I N E L I S E P A R T R I D G E My violin was made in 1727. Moving at [contemporary] speeds surprises it. It wants to go by boat. Or by train. In the time of Mozart or Beethoven, life was di√erent, slower. – Maxim Vengerov That bump on the horizon – sun? set? risen? Maine? Seine? The Red – no the Irish Sea! Tokyo, Rio, Capetown, Perth, Mumbai – Missouri? Even the clouds are speeding! Juggled, dizzy moons, promo’d orbits, flurries of tickets, green room, green room, green room – Maxim! let’s get becalmed, spend meandering days in the Brahms. Reverse-thrust through eons, follow the aerial career of at most three motes of dust. 9 5 R This flipping clock counts milliseconds. The tocker at the archduke’s stuck at one. Sails on lumbering brigs – The tree that made me stood five hundred years. I feel its still forest in my fibers. I’d rather lurch forward in a howdah, ride the balking apex of a snail. I recall some outdoor fête – a brackish pool, the fish nearly snoring in the reeds; their aimless, eddying schools. . . . Or clattering to the schloss over bumping cobbles behind a stalling nag. (That owner taught the lord’s brat to sing.) I was left on a gilded chair by the footman’s post. A beetle spent all day clasping my strings. ...