Play for us, you big wild gypsy girl,

~ Tom Robbins ~ 

Play for us, you big wild gypsy girl, you who look as if you might have spent the morning digging potatoes on the steppes of Russia;
you who surely galloped in on a snorting mare,
bareback or standing in the saddle; you whose chicory tresses reek of bonfire and jasmine;
you who traded a dagger for a bow;
grab your violin as if it were a stolen chicken,
roll your perpetually startled eyes at it,
scold it with that split beet dumpling you call a mouth;
fidget, fuss, flounce, flick, fume–and fiddle;
fiddle us through the roof, fiddle us over the moon, higher than rock ‘n’ roll can fly;
saw those strings as if they were the log of the century,
fill the hall with the ozone of your passion;
play Mendelssohn for us, play Brahms and Bruch;
get them drunk, dance with them,
wound them, and then nurse their wounds,
like the eternal female that you are;
play until the cherries burst in the orchard,
play until wolves chase their tails in the tearooms;
play until we forget how we long to tumble with you in the flower beds under Chekhov’s window; play, you big wild gypsy girl, until beauty and wildness and longing are one.

(Tom Robbins, “Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg,” 2005)

Images @ Eminpee Fotography