I was tuning up and knew
today’s the day
flat, unchanged note
the steel string twanged sharp and snapped
I can’t remember when it was new
when had I last made love to my nude guitar
all 12 strings unwound from keys now
draped to the floor – her 12 pegs rooted just below the bridge
into a voluptuous grand body of curves.
Somewhat tarnished, the wrapped golds and bronze wire
were highlighted by the silver of Es and Bs
Metallic sweetgrass cascades
from her high gloss sunburst body
I am stunned by her nakedness
The Rosewood fingerboard – exposed to touch
fret bars scored from pressures of play
and stretch of strings to bend blue notes of sorrow
These strings of hair brushed aside
she lays waiting for the nuance
excepting her vulnerable state,
agreeing to the relationship our marriage
of needing each other and resonance of spirit
Breath
and touch
to touch her in places that her tough taut strings normally shielded
Sacred exposure
a demystification that only compounds the mystery of vulnerability
Oh, the places we have travelled-
Inside her belly she harbors birch bark guitar picks
made just for me in 1979
signed by 10 year old Don Don
who accompanied me on flute – we’d improvise
and with a group of rag tag kids
Malecite, Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, and one Cherokee
we canoed to an island in Mud Lake
where the harmonics of my lover’s 12 strings graced us without campfire
just crickets, frogs, waves and sticks on sticks, stone on stone
the Ancestors made music through us
She was young then, in her vibrato of life
between stones and Princess Pine, balsam and peace
we all slept deep that night on the earth
our bodies sunk into thick moss
and the bosomed cradle of a mother’s hum
Now
letting her hair down
those metal strands arced like bridging cables to hallowed ground
I hear her breathe a sigh – a release – a relief –
from the tensions of expectations to perform
to bear witness and hold keys tuned – accountable –
She wants me to touch her in this way
a rare moment to recollect- to orbit my fingers around
her sound hole circling the open O of her heart
The palm of my hand feels a breeze of sound as wind
as coolness and something in me remembers the caves of Andalusia
amplification of the earth
and she sings from her heart. I comb her strings
that braid naturally – the spun metal
I have fed my flesh and blood for 40 years
Her magnificence
her aging wood, darker, seasoned
Oh, how the men wanted her after hearing
the power of her Universe
and asked to play her just once
in silence
they always handed her back to me knowing
that a soul has many pieces
and if we’re lucky
we find the ones that make us whole
Suzanne Rancourt is Abenaki/Huron decent, born and raised in the mountains of West Central Maine currently residing in the Adirondack Mountains, NY. She has work appearing in Young Ravens Literary Review, Tupelo Press Native Voices Anthology, Bright Hill Press 25th Anniversary Anthology, Bright Hill Press 25th Anniversary Anthology, Dawnland Voices 2.0 #4, Northern New England Review, Bear Review, Three Drops Press, Snapdragon Journal, mgversion2>datura, Sirsee, Slipstream, Collections of Poetry and Prose issues War, and Empowerment, Muddy River Poetry Review, Ginosko, Journal of Military Experience, Cimarron Review, Callaloo, numerous anthologies, translations, and text books. Her book, Billboard in the Clouds was the winner of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award and murmurs at the gate is scheduled for release May 2019. Ms. Rancourt is a USMC and USA veteran.
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