A Piano Recital Of Isser Slonim At The Rubin Academy In Jerusalem Poem by Shalom Freedman

A PIANO RECITAL OF ISSER SLONIM AT THE RUBIN ACADEMY IN JERUSALEM


An old man is not a paltry thing
His hands are hammers and strings
His mind holds the whole composition
Before it unflows to us.

In this bare room
With these simple chairs
His Russian students long hair
Bright their laughter- Youth,

He gives a life of integrity
To playing a music of strength
whose tones deepened
by mastery say,
“This is a real thing a great thing. “

And this time its name is not fame and celebrity
but is one small man,
a teacher who bears in his own inner depth
all the music
his students have in long years
learned from him
whose fingers with fierce flexibility
play through
to the end
with intelligence and humor
the sounds which make us feel
we too may sometimes live
in a higher world, also.