Comments - devoted to comments from both Ensemble members and audience members.
One of our ensemble members, Elaina Wood, wrote this lovely poem after becoming interested in harp for therapy and then playing the harp at retirement homes and for church shut-ins who couldn't get out and about.
Harp Poem, by Elaina Wood
Fingers meet colored strings:
Sound breaks from the sound box,
Resonating in the air.
I try to crack the surface of time,
Take someone to a place where the past cannot reach,
Where pain and sorrow cannot penetrate the state of calm.
Some watch the sound with closed eyes,
Grasping it in their minds,
Their ears taking it in,
Filling in a hole that was dug
By years of silence.
My calloused fingers play for blistered hearts,
For minds that don’t often receive company.
Either they have been left by the world,
Or their minds have abandoned them to dementia or worse.
The strings can tell no difference.
They were born to play for those who have aged into silence.
I don’t know if my harp’s song will go with me forever.
Giving my life to the shared song’s guidance,
All I know is that this is what matters to me now.