a tuning fork in the road

Musik Meines Vaters

with a fork in the flat, asphalt road before him
he followed the sound of instinct, the music of chance
and the strain of violins that countered the violence
of a midwest, manifest destiny he chose to reject

just got out
just got away

and found that cello weeping low
between the static of shortwave
a signal stretched
from saskatchewan south to san angelo
deep in the heart
asleep in his heart
the longing he heard behind the largo desires
of Albinoni
the isolation he felt buried beneath icy stabs
of Sibelius
the sense of place he discovered between pastoral passages
of Copland
and so surrendered to the sounds of a road less traveled

and so, here I sit, in a car,
in the early morning glare
of eastern standard light,
years from that fork
fine tuning through the static of life
just a generation removed
from rural poverty,
inevitable alcoholism,
and a still turning cycle of violence
turning as surely as the skyline of windmills
strung across a dying prairie
like strings across a splintered stradivarius
dwarfing long abandoned radio towers
that once crackled with the music of my father