I don’t know how to play it
wouldn’t know where to begin
and yet it beams out a gravity
much like a rolling pin
or terracotta flowerpot
pruners, or a hoe
piano or organ keyboard,
a scraper for bread dough,
a pad of lined blank paper
a pen, an artist brush
they make my fingers eager
they give me a head rush
with primal primitive instinct
my fingers stretch, reach out
but it’s really my very self
the pull is all about.
Certain things there are
that, silent, speak to me
make my fingers restless
to do, to make, to be.
More thanks to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Oddments 
May 8, 2018 at 10:27 am
The difference is you have musical talent when you look at it. When I look at it, I see a beautiful piece of wood. 🙂
May 8, 2018 at 11:00 am
Ah, but suppose that beautiful wood was a sewing machine. I suspect you have the same kind of response when you see a needle, a piece of fabric, a quilt, not to mention the hoe, the trowel and the seed packet — I bet all those things make your fingers tingle the same way mine do. Different talents with sewing and music, yes, but I’m betting the exact same impulse: we want to dig in and MAKE something, be it music, a quilt, or a garden. Are we cursed or blessed?
May 8, 2018 at 7:22 pm
Blessed, no doubt about it. I was wondering what the towel was for… drying hot fingers after a session of dancing along the strings perhaps, or to keep the strings from playing tunes of their own while it is being moved?
May 8, 2018 at 7:57 pm
Both your guesses are as good as mine. I wondered too, and I did some googling but didn’t come away informed. Maybe it goes between the instrument and the bassist’s shoulder if that’s where it’s balanced. I will my consult my cellist granddaughter.
May 8, 2018 at 10:34 pm
My granddaughter tells me that the rag is a special cloth for wiping the rosin off the strings after the instrument is played; the rosin comes from the bow. Now we know!
May 10, 2018 at 3:05 pm
Just a note about the concert in which the instrument was played. There was a piece done, American Concerto, by Kathryn & Kim Kluge that was one of the most powerful, meaningful pieces of music I have heard. Your thoughts, as always, bring the same urge to create.
May 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm
Thank you! Not just for the compliment, but for giving another dimension to the image. Thinking of your response to the music makes the instrument more of what it is — a voice.