When I met her I stammered
and dropped things.
She would smirk, toss her waist long hair
and smile out of the corner of her winking eye.
If music is the food of love
she played on and on.

She had just returned from the Curtis school
where she dated Yo Yo Ma
and giggled that his thing
was bitten by a dog.
As an average cellist but physically intact
I wasn't shy anymore.

Her every gesture was commanding.
Every nuance of her face alluring.
She was a concerto of body and spirit
that didn't need a violin to make music
but the gods saw fit for her
to have one.

It was actually her mother
who moved heaven and earth
to squeeze corporate money
for Martha's exquisite music.
From Interlochen to Eastman
she left a trail of praise.

I fell in love with this violinist
And she said yes when I proposed.
We lived in a roof top loft of Norwegian wood
lit by a single gas lamp,
and later shared the ground floor
of a mansion on Park Avenue.

The music conservatory was demanding.
My work as a hypnotist was fascinating.
Then lying in bed cast in the light of a salvaged stained glass wall
she had her first seizure in over a year.
The Pheno barb lost its grip of control.
When I told her what happened she wept.

Enter the epileptic demon that plagued her.
Enter the friends with concern
Enter the psycho-cult for emotional discharge.
But there was no relief and there was no retreat.
She did not believe in barriers.
As always she just took charge.

Her best friend Clint of many years
played violin more sweetly.
The school demanded he move back to the dorms.
He was gay and would not go back.
His lover or his music: he could not choose.
When pills didn't work he took his parent's shotgun.

He willed his violin to Martha.
Her health grew worse in remorse.
I was called to a psycho-cult meeting
where she was having a seizure
surrounded by people urging her
to get it out of her system in a crude excorcism.

Back home things grew strained.
I succumbed to seduction
by one of the psycho-cult women.
Martha took refuge at the home
of the psychologist who ran the group
and continued to grieve for Clint.

She went through two marriages
and 3 brain surgeries
removing a baseball size chunk of her brain.
I smile to think she is now with a cellist
who looks a bit like me
and that she kept on achieving with laser intensity.

She went on to perform in Russia
the Middle East and Europe
as well as the USA.
Every performance had a prelude.
Before she played she would say
We must all believe how strong we can be.

I only learned this because my parents
saw her special on 60 minutes.
She used her talent and adversity
to blaze a path for us and herself.
Now I don't know if she remembers me
or if I was removed in the surgeries.

But in my heart I know
she's playing Clint's violin
and the music she plays,
she plays by heart
with a love
that continues to grow.





By Don Hakman
in tribute to:


www.marthacurtis.com/bio.htm