Cellobration! 23 August 2025
pause completely
for a moment,
if you will.
locate yourself in your body,
drop your shoulders,
let your hands go soft,
let your giornata—your day’s work—
fall away, dissipate:
the slicing of strawberries,
the angry motorist who nearly
hit you in a crosswalk,
the website that insisted you create
a new password to replace the old, again,
the unceasing news reports,
the mixing of concrete
for your garage repair,
the mowing of lawn,
the folding of laundry.
all of it gone, no longer present,
like ice that has melted,
like water that has evaporated.
now, step into this barn
with its terra cotta walls and
its post-and-rough-beam interior
opening all the way
to the peak of its roof.
imagine the work that took place here
when it was part of a model dairy farm
a century ago producing 1000 quarts
of milk daily, sense the activity
of the children’s day-camp program
in session here just this past week,
feel the jostling right now
as you come together
in community with others
in the gathering dusk
to find seats beneath the string lights.
drop into the energy of anticipation,
take in the rustling,
the overlapping conversations,
notice the sleeveless dresses, the strappy
sandals, the crisp button-down shirts
and pressed khakis, the blue jeans,
the polo shirts,
the occasional bow tie.
and then, stillness.
into a space
ample enough
for your collective presence
to bestow honor,
yet contained enough
to be intimate,
a handful of chamber musicians enters,
each one an alchemist.
in the fermata that arises
when crickets outdoors cease
tuning their instruments
and fall silent,
these cellists, violinists, and a violist
walk on stage
to take their places,
tune their own instruments,
then offer up their first notes
of performance.
know in every cell of your body,
this, too, in the world:
this fullness beyond words,
this vibration,
bowing the strings
of your heart,
this vibration,
plucking tears
from deep within,
vibration,
lifting
spirit to fill the barn
and spill out
through enormous
screen doors
behind the stage—
mesh screens as wide as the stage and
high as the roof sill—
offering access
to the movement of air and
the movement of the earth
as the sun gives over to darkness.
savor the movement of all
that falls away
and all that rushes in
to transport
to transform
to transfix.
no matter what else
in the world,
this too,
this music.
—dotty seiter
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3 x 3″; watercolor, ink, and watercolor pencil on paper
card #29 in a series of color swatches
2025
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Notes about poem and art:
• “Cellobration!” the poem took three months to write as I worked to find words to express how Cellobration! the concert, performed by Manchester Summer Chamber Music, touched me.
• Card #16 in my color swatch series, posted previously, featured blackberry lilies in their closed seed-pod stage. Seeds, card #29 above, features them in their exposed-seeds stage, looking like blackberries, from which their common name derives. I’m still hoping to catch them in the blossom stage, but that won’t take place before next summer!
dottyseiter: now playing 
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