Mstislav Rostropovich
Row J, Top Balcony, Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor

Far below us, the curved walls converge
to a tiny circle of light. In it, a bald
man sits, holding a cello between his knees
as a father might hold a child.

He bows the strings simply, telling a story
we all have heard before. We did not know
each other, but everyone on the steep bank
leans together to follow

the words, the working out of the old plot.
It is as we remember it, but clearer,
everything told just as it must have happened
the knocking on the door,

the gift of a shirt, the flowers, the dark road.
He catches the lift or falter of each voice
and lets a simile unfold like wood
smoke. The action goes

as we know it must, tangled in jealously, the bird
lost, the lovers misunderstanding. The story
pauses and plummets like water over a rock.
Silence. The cellist reaches for

a handful of high notes ourselves in the top
balcony. He finds us right where he left us
and plays us pure and sweet as a bunch of onions
hanging from the rafters.

-- by Conrad Hilberry, published in Player Piano