Lara Kirsten on piano

I am reminiscing on past concerts. I performed the last concert of my program The Resonating Pulse at the Tatham Gallery. I fondly remember this poem written to me that day by poet Bruce Haynes.

She sat, fingers pulsing the keys

Of a Shigeru Kawai piano

Bathed in the natural light

Of Pietermaritzburg's Tatham Art Gallery

On an October afternoon

Brown hair cascading down her back

With a feral intensity

She told us about playing piano in a sandstorm

In the Tankwa Karoo

At AfrikaBurn

I realised then

That Lara the poet-pianist is

Part landscape

Part human

Some indomitability of spirit

Some surge of will

Some vast dry landscape living through her

Weathered orange rocks and hot sand

And, above it all

A charged electrostatic sky

A promise of rain.

 - Bruce Haynes

October 2018