A good cut--sliver by sliver--finds an owl's eye in the texture. You rasp and sand for the curve of muscle, the feel of bone, then smoke and varnish for the whiskey sheen. When it's dry and strung, tune it to the wind till it comes alive, brightwood again. If a fiddle's fashioned with such ardor, it can stir the world's first spark, drawn the way healing always is--from the stridor of the dark.