THE PIANO TUNER:

Once upon long ago, upon a very long, long time,

I lived deep in the bush, under hot African sunshine,

Of hardened feet & my skin marula-nutted & brown,

Far away from running water, lighting, telly & town,

I was Just a little bush baby, a wild white African girl,

Of freckled snub nose & sun-kissed, wild auburn curl.

Ma said, “A savage now you are & it´s culture you need,”

So she started in earnest upon her dire evil & urgent deed,

It was music she favoured, so hunting low & searching high,

And through bush telegraph, message racing through hot sky,

Brought across oceans in a very big ship, mama´s old piano,

Delivered & wheeled through dust in an old red wheelbarrow.

Plink-Plunk, bored, I tried my best to practice each & every day,

But I´d rather be free with the wild animals to gambol, run & play,

Mama rapped my knuckles & kept my stubborn nose to the grind,

But in the bush, the piano was out of sight & totally out of my mind,

I´d run free through the bush with joy, glee & bare-footed little toes,

 I´d swim through water-lilied homes of the big yawning grey hippos.

But then one hot day through tunes & scales, the piano lost its song,

It just sounded so flat & so sad & every note just sounded so wrong,

So Mama once again, hunted & searched for someone to come & fix,

Not an easy task mind you, when you´re living right out in the sticks,

One day through a cloud of dust, our old clapped out jeep appeared,

Dad driving in the front, & there was an old gent sitting back in the rear.

“This is the piano tuner,” said daddy from the dusty jeep quite far away,

But having already lost interest, I was on my way to frolic & joyfully play,

This man had a white stick, wore very dark glasses & was so totally blind,

He piqued my interest, so stooped, so old & with a smile so gentle & kind.

He said sadly, it was the heat & the dust, that had maimed & hurt the tune,

For two whole days he plinked & plunked, from morning until the full moon.

At last he smiled with the sun on his face & said, “Eureka, all is now finally well,”

 Being a pest & in simple childhood, I asked him, “How can you actually tell?”

Without a single word, he turned to me with his smile & simply began to play,

His music was magic & chased away the flies & heat of the long African day,

“Green-sleeves” danced through the halls of the bush, leaving me teary & weak,

As a single solitary teardrop rolled down the piano tuner´s old wrinkled cheek.