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Quilter's Muse Virtual Museum

Fiddler Jones by Edgar Lee Masters

a poem recited by Patricia Lynne Grace Cummings
 

Close up of a "Fiddler," as it is embroidered in Redwork on a child's bib from the nineteenth century. photo by James Cummings; collection of Patricia Cummings.

The earth keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all of your life.

What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.

To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drought;
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor."

How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill --only these?

And I never started to plow in my life
That someone did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.

I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle --
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

 

"Fiddler Jones" is a poem of which I was first aware when I heard it recited by my beautiful niece, at her sister's wedding. An airplane, flying overhead, drowned out some of the sound on the video, thus disturbing a perfectly-rendered recitation. I was happy to find the words to this poem, and am even happier to share them with you here.

To me, the words, "and when they find that you can fiddle, fiddle you must all of your days," speaks to discovered talents, and the expectations of others that we will continue to share our own talents, once they have been discovered. May you always be willing to share your "gifts" with others.

Patricia Cummings
February 2009

 

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