I interpreted the vast heavens today
as a cache of infinite musical notes.
Suspended in random fashion,
I viewed
the stars through
a transparency etched
with the five lines of a musical staff.
Moving the
sheet across the sky,
I was perfectly beguiled
when the stars became notes
stacked in harmonies
of minor fifths and sevenths,
semitones and microtones,
a wash of minuet and
motet blossoming
before me.
A supernal opus
(of grand composition)
flowed forward, aggrandized
by tercets and triads; this resplendent
mix of heterogeneous interstellar suspensions
graced the musical staff in random fashion.
.
Was this the enlightenment of the ages?
Astrophysical symphonies
that could unlock mind’s eye,
open distant portals,
produce healing balms
capable of soothing broken hearts.
Could this be the key to opening the
eyes and ears of those who gaze forever
upward and inward but never see or hear?
.
Now, entranced in sheer loftiness,
and given a gift of
heightened auditory sensation,
Centaurus became a cantus firmus,
and Leo Minor a seraphic capriccio.
Then, as I moved the
transparent musical staff
to the North, the Corona Borealis
played out as a madrigal of sweet simplicity,
while Leo Major roared in perpetuum mobile.
Moving collectively in contrapuntal base,
the Gemini Twins danced
in an exoticism of far-off lands, while
Cassiopeia became an oratorio of genteel luster.
With the grandeur of a Turkish Sultan,
Pegasus celebrated with a lively
blending of triangles, bass drums, cymbals,
double-reed instruments, bell-trees and trumpets.
In bel canto Andromeda sang in purity,
While Picis Austrinus
became a chaste passacaglia.
.
How consummate... this sinfonia of sounds
sating the cosmos. With every movement of the
musical staff, another motif of harmonic brilliance
spilled forth in the mysterious intermingling of stars.
How diminished I became - gazing up at this glorious
composition - agnizing that the earth and its dwellers
were but one note in this grand heavenly euphony.
.
© richard lloyd cederberg
2022

In Memory....

    Between the Cracks - A Monumental Journey Series