Harmony

He carried his heart in a bag of brown leather,
stained, weather veined & worn close
to his chest, catching the earth out of tune.
A beggar in silk he arrived to arrange
in harmonious order, the hidden refrain
of chords found in pitch perfect symmetry.

He sought to unseal locked-in temple chimes
wrapped in silk silence in Bedouin tents
buried in chests of camphor and pine,
banned from the altars of royal events.

By magic or chance he uncovered a thrush
in covertures of dissonance, held
in the hush of a song-bird spell, until
played inside his case in an overture
of unequaled balance & grace.

He longed to recover lost tones of enrapture
captured within the stalemated air
in passages veiled in sostenutos exhaled
in vapors of sustaining suspense.
Searching for sonance he ached to embrace

crying white peacocks' midnight threnody, &
place it inside his pillaging sack of soniferous
sounds, silvery notes, & spilled desert smells.
On a sky borrowed he soared to perform
before nations resigned to discordant unrest.

In precious metals he flew on a saucer of night,
his heart latched in a satchel of fast descent,
past gravity's mass of mortal restraints,
exposing his soul to a chaotic race,
rendered deaf by the din of majority’s rule.

For whom could the music be played just then?
Caught in the seduction of clouds he prepared
for the next event while making friends
with angels who composed in sighing unison,
vespers for the unsung avatar