NOCTURNE

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” - Plato

Poets and Storytellers United this week asks us to “pick a picture and write about it”. What has inspired me is a painting by Henri Rousseau, the French naïf artist, called “The Snake Charmer”. It is done in his signature style and is a wonderful mysterious image, all about the power of music.

And since it’s all about music, you can hear this poem set to music in my “Otidorchestre” sites on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, Flo, Pandora, etc.

Nocturne

In the stillness of the night

To the silvern moon’s delight

Sweetly does the flute resound

Spilling music all around.

Ebon skin and hair that shimmers

Shiny glance that softly glimmers,

Sinuous and sweet’s the air

Luring beasts from out their lair.

Music makes the jungle tame

Calms and yet ignites a flame.

Music soothes the savage beast

Rouses passions in the priest.

Neath the moon’s resplendent orb

Flowers music’s strains absorb.

Snakes start to slither, slide,

Right up to the flautist glide.

She charms serpent, beast and bird

With her music not her word;

Now the snakes around her creep

Up they climb, roused from sleep.

Music heals the deepest wound

Makes the air around perfumed.

Music calls to arms and strife,

Yet assassins drop their knife.

And each gentle leaf unfurls,

Flower twines and softly curls;

As the music upwards floats

Rhythm, melody, sweet notes.

In the stillness of the night

To the silvern moon’s delight

Sweetly does the flute resound

Spilling music all around.