The Blind Violinist Poem by C Richard Miles

On a crowded, cramped, cold corner
In lively, vibrant Covent Garden
Surrounded by the hustle and the bustle
Of the masses passing by,
The old, blind violinist plays
His soulful, sad sonatas
Seeing in his imagination
All the colours of the music
As it dances like a ballerina
Twirling on the unseen stave
Which waltzes to the rhythm of his fiddle
As he bends horsehair
To coax the last, lost lilting half-echoes
Of yearning from strings
Taut as the hushed heartstrings
Of the enraptured audience
Souls spirited away from mediocre mundanity
By melodies long remembered
From youth’s fresh innocence,
Before the darkness came
To taint the tune of idleness,
To make the fiddler strive
To scrape a meagre living
With his rosined, rushing bow.