[austintorn@aol.com]

Moonlight Sonata

The music of the spring was in the breeze,
A prelude borne by airy musicians
Of the trees—the mating calls of the birds,
That opened for a cosmic symphony.

The Music of the Spheres played in the park
At night—flung down by our Father, the Sky,
Through the soft night to our Mother, the Earth,
Then to us, their audience and progeny.

The planets joined in a concert to the
Merrie Monthe of Maie, arrayed as follows:
There was Venusia, the Bringer of Peace,
Singing side by side with warring Marsius,

Flitting about was the wingéd Mercuria,
The speedy messenger who conducted
The orchestra, melting all of us who
Were touched by her wand of burning desire.

And mighty Zeus, was there, full to the brim
With the jollity of the fat man's belly.
By Jove, came Saturnus, so very gray
With age—lumbering into the party.

Thence sat Urania, the magician, and
The old sea captain, King Nep, the mystic,
But not Pluto; he was downsized, no more
One of the harmonics, an underworld!

Jupiter’s music was round and robust,
While Saturn’s boomed with the sounds of grandeur
And the old venerable melodies;
But, Mercury soon picked up the pace.

Next flowed the serene love songs of Venus,
Followed inexorably by Martial marches.
Now was the time for Urania's magic—
She played musical jokes and surprises.

At last, their music came to mesh as one,
As our wanderers of the night floated
Away on the haunting mystical strains
Of King Nep's tune, into the May Flower moon.

Now we're touched, so touched by the starlight,
Afraid that we'll ne’er be the same again.
Can you sense the euphony of the spheres?
Can you fathom the theory of everything?