On seeing Anne Akiko Meyers perform Artuo Márquez’s Fandango with the Nashville Symphony

Wearing a fuchsia dress that looked furious

against the backdrop of black-clad

musicians, she beat beauty from one side

of the stage to the other until it behaved

as she wanted, her solos what guitar gods

only wished they could create;

she’s not the Van Halen of violin,

but who Eddie dreamed of being.

One arm was a piston moving the musicians

through one more movement,

the other with fingers working the frets

with no worries, no concerns

for the next note or next night,

as she berated the composition

like she caught it sleeping with a soloist

who didn’t love it like she did.

She moved to the music during her rare rests,

remembered why she kept coming back

to it and it to her, the love evident

in every moment of friction, string to string

until it seemed tendrils would rise

to the rafters and the hall would ignite in

a fire that no waves of applause could quench.