At the Children's Violin Concert

          Firmly bowed
strands of horse hair
          tightened or
gathered up by
          a small hand to play
          a piece by J. S. Bach
who drank 36 cups of coffee every day.

I like him because he was
inspired by his belief in God
& he played an organ in a church
in Leipzig & he walked on
cobblestone streets to his home
every evening where he fathered
many children & wrote music
for his wife to clean house by.
He worked hard all his life
& when he died, he left us
all the little notes he made
for himself while he was alone.

Susan Cataldo, Drenched: Selected Poems of Susan Cataldo (Telephone Books, 2003)