A sonnet for the fiddler, December 12, 2002

by David Heiller

I pulled the car off the highway and into the familiar driveway. I grabbed my violin case and headed up the driveway that led into the valley. We call it Heiller Valley in our house, because it was in the Heiller family for many years until my grandma sold it to the State of Minnesota in about 1970.

I felt a little strange, carrying my fiddle. The last time a fiddle had been transported into that valley was probably before I was born. My grandpa had played one, and he died in 1953.

I was more accustomed to carrying a .22 rifle up the familiar path. The 500-acres of land was full of squirrels. It’s a paradise for them, with all those hickory, walnut and oak trees. I spent many fall days hunting there.

But the fiddle it was. I had been reading a book by Bobbie Ann Mason called Clear Springs. It’s a fantastic book, a memoir about her childhood in western Kentucky, and how she was affected when she moved away.

David and his fiddle.

There was a parallel to her childhood home and this valley for me. My dad and his siblings grew up here. I’ve always drawn a strength from walking there. I don’t know if it’s just in my head, or there is something more that the logical mind can^’t explain. That’s why I was carrying the fiddle. Sometimes music can open my mind. Was I trying to call in the spirits? I don’t know. But I do know that there are some spots where music flows out of me. A comfort zone. Maybe that’s what I was looking for.

The walk to the house was so pleasant. A ton of memories came back. That hill where the men lit a stick of dynamite one Fourth of July. The meadow where a cow died and bloated up like a balloon. That huge oak tree with a limb that sticks straight out like giant^’s bicep. How many picnics did we have there?

I found the old home site. Now there was just a slight depression in the ground. It’s amazing how Mother Nature can reclaim a farm. In the gully was half of a wringer washing machine and a skinny tire from an old car.

I leaned against a tree and played a few tunes, and none too well. Maybe the temperature wasn’t warm enough. Blame it on the weather! Anyway, my fingers rebelled.

I packed up the fiddle and started walking the half mile back to the road. I took a detour through the old barn. All that was left was the concrete foundation. I could see where the stanchions had been. I remembered how my uncle Donny had filled the loft with hay every summer. I had helped on more than a few occasions. What a job. Now it was all gone.

A deer took off from a gully ahead of me. It bounded up the hill, a big one, although I couldn’t see if it was a buck or a doe.

I got to a huge walnut tree, another landmark from my youth, and sat down. I looked down the driveway in both directions to see if anyone was coming. Yes, I felt a little self-conscious. But I had the valley to myself on that Friday morning, and it didn’t take long for me to relax and just sit there with a dumb grin. Somehow I knew my old relatives would not mind me sitting there and scratching out a tune. Grandpa had played Peek-A-Boo Waltz to the point of distraction for his kids, so I’ve been told. He would have understood. He probably would have sat down and listened. Dad too.

So I played that waltz, and a few others. The music never did flow from me. It usually goes that way; when you try too hard to summon something, it stays just out of reach.

But it didn’t matter. I still had that extra spring in my step when I left the Heiller Valley, a feeling that I knew myself just a little better than I did before. That always happens.

I told Mom what I had done when I got home. I wasn’t sure how she would react to a 49-year-old son of hers playing his fiddle in the woods, at the end of November no less. But I could see that it had hit a chord with her too.

A few days later I got this poem from her. It sums up the day better than I can. Thanks, Mom!

David playing on the deck, overlooking Heiller Valley

A Sonnet for the Fiddler

by Fern Heiller

There is a place from boyhood that he always will remember,

And so he went walking there on a morning in November.

He walked the rutted valley road into the old home place;

He didn’t have his hunting gun but took his fiddle case.

He paused to sit awhile beneath the ancient walnut tree,

And drew his bow across the strings to play a melody.

A little further down the trail, there would have been the gate,

But that was gone, like house and barn, for he was much too late.

His grandpa used to walk this ground, when times were good or bad,

And his father, too, and he himself, when he was just a lad.

His grandpa played a fiddle, too, and he hoped to hear

An echo of a waltz or polka coming to his ear.

But the only music that he heard was wind in grass and leaves.

The voices of the past were gone—time is the best of thieves.

But he took his fiddle and the bow and played a tune or two,

For Grandpa and for Grandma and the dad he never knew.