Through Lara's Gift

I want to share a poem - for a change written not by me - but by friend and fellow-poet Bruce Haynes. He wrote this during a recital I gave of the 10 Pieces collected in the EUSA album by Yann Tiersen in 2017. This week the poem has been calling me again. 

I have such fond memories of that performance in Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal. 

I have read it in subsequent performances of these pieces. It never ceases to pull a few gasps from the audience.

Bruce, this poem keeps spreading its ripples. 

Thank you. 

Through Lara's Gift

I wondered then
At the spread of pattern
The melodies mimicking
The sea
Bird cries
The song of rock
Surf spray
Small spreading leaves and tufts of grasses
An orchestra of wind
Pebbles tides           waves.
Horizons.
That Yann Tiersen's pattern
Of sound through time
His sculpture of crying notes
And scales. His tides of melody
His currents of music and soil
Slowly building over time
His springs and storms and rains.
And silence.
That this pattern
Could hatch itself on the ledge
Of a piano. And spread its wings in a heartbeat
Of fingertips. Of muscles dancing in prayer.
That an island
Could live like a sob in my chest
A migrating bird
Criss-crossing the world to nest between pianists’ fingers.
I can only lie prostrate
Before the algorithm of evolution and whisper
It works
Let it spread.

Poet - Bruce Haynes

Written during the performance of Yann Tiersen’s EUSA by South African pianist Lara Kirsten