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CHET ATKINS

A touch of Spain in Tennessee
Is that what you are, Mr. Guitar Man?

Your eyes are sleepy
Yet understanding
And deep-seeing.

Your body is the posture
Of a questionmark
Or a long fishhook.

You move like the sleepy fog
Gently upcurving over Tennessee Rivers,
Graceful, unhurried, a little bored.

But your fingers tell the story.
Let out of leather golfglove cases
They spring to storied life.
They flick forth like the
Quick-forked tongues of snakes.
They pump and roll
Like exercisers' legs
Walking the air sunward.

Until you start playing.
Then they move like the fog,
Sure, slow-rising, true to the rhythm,
Incredibly strong in their light leaping swiftness,
Raising and lowering, disciplined, trained,
Quivering and crossing like the
Thousand legs of a millipede
Rendering motion, easy motion.
Ordering form out of chaos.

Your fingers give tongue
To deep inner passions,
Spanish red and swirling gold purple.

Your inscrutable face
Is transfixed by the music.
Your breathing adheres to the
Emotion of the music.
Winds of universal art
Sweep through you, waving you,
Rippling your lips, crossing your nose,
Eyes, eyelids, forehead, hair,
As your fingers dance on
To the music.

You are the essence of taste
And things musically beautiful.
A touch of Spain and a lot of Tennessee.

 

-Billy Edd Wheeler
TRAVIS & OTHER POEMS
OF THE SWANNANOA VALLEY, 1977

 

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