Harmonics
	for Ellen

My teacher showed me how to touch the string
as lightly as a miller moth that floats
as much as lands, and pull the bow to coax
the overtone, the note’s thin ghost to wing
into the air above my violin.
These secret sounds sleep up and down the length
of every string, but only ring beneath
a finger perched precisely as a pin
on a map to mark where you haven’t been,
the way telescopes find more stars between
the ones the eyes can see, or dogs inspect
the storied scents our noses can’t detect,
or poets brush the mind’s gut core to play
unspeakable words the soul would say.