Vivaldi

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                             To Vivaldi

   Notes on the giddy, garrulous flautina,
   Given wings and placed in groups of three,
   Climb the canopy of sky and find repose
   In the arms of a sultry bassline.

   The flutes giggle and whisper, possessed of a secret
   the rest of the orchestra will never know.
   The violins are children on carousels
   On a nascent spring morning.

   The oboes and clarinets hum the bashful beauty
   Of summer rainwater swirling in oceans.
   If Jimi kissed the sky, then you swallowed it whole;
   You took the whirling maroons and browns.

   The still trees - first whitened, then resuscitated -
   The sweet, moist pages of night,
   Organized them pristinely and capaciously
   And crammed them into wood and strings and brass.

   Late at night as I write music by open windows,
   The subservient candles keep stooping on my desk,
   Until they coalesce into a warm, dead puddle.
   I light more candles and close my eyes.

   When the oboes and clarinets
   Have skulked lugubriously into the night;
   And when the flautinas, flutes and violins
   Have reluctantly followed.

   I ask delicate breeze through my open windows
   Where the notes have gone and why
   Tell me where they came from, the breeze answers,
   And I will tell you where they have gone.

   Posted 2/3/02

"To Vivaldi" by Rasheed

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