Beth’s beautiful poem

My wonderful client, Beth Franklin, a retired Professor, wrote this beautiful poem about our piano lessons together. Beth read her poem aloud at one of my recitals, which was very moving for everyone. I’m so grateful that this is my job, and that I get to teach piano to such amazing clients! I am sharing her poem on my blog, with her permission:

Ivory Perception 

Stillness encircles my solitude;

my mind eludes the Shadow

through a quiet odyssey of verse and image.

Lately,

that fusion of abstraction foments with music – 

new paths lined with notes and rests,

a tonal meditation –  

infinite phrasing of rich timbre, articulation; 

endless spectrums of color and ranges of intensity;

a perpetual ebb and flow of energies.

Timid fingers touch keys –

tentative, then sure,

caressing, pounding,

Each score, a long and complex journey

enveloping a strangeness – 

such unfamiliar longing,

yet calm and true.

Straining, searching.

A sense of hope

borne of deep concentration.

Each key evoking new, yet familiar thoughts;

each chord, a sympathetic response 

resonating with forgotten harmonies within.

A relentless regime of scales,

struggle, practice, ‘mastery’ of sorts.

Memory embedded in muscle,

tension permeates the warp and weft of Black and White,

emergent moods of dark and light.

Tonal eloquence eases my sadness.

Genius measured in time by pulsing bars –

waves of sound bearing narratives 

of grief, of joy, of peace.

Harmonics of a deeply textured message 

beckons, draws me to that elusive feat of excellence. 

This aural refuge suppresses the dark void, 

that private cave of loss.

Fingers discover dance,

embracing the motion of consciousness,

lulling random thought into obedience,

diverting raw impulse into perfection of sound.

Music, 

my third dimension of hidden language,

new challenges of expression, creation, growth.

Beth Franklin                                                

24 April 2016