The Merry Love the Fiddle

I was 58 before I learned he used to fiddle
and that story too from Aunt Stella,
herself a musician, I knew,

but she played for the church
and that was OK with Ab–
he even bought a parlor organ for the girls–

but after he got saved,
before the children were born, even,
he gave up dances and fiddle-playing

and once, Aunt Stella says,
when she was nearly grown
and home from college with a friend,

the two in the parlor one Sunday afternoon
playing a hymn on organ and violin,
Ab walked in and shut them off,

as the fiddle was still the devil’s instrument
and unfit for his house now,
even with grace cascading from its strings.