This is my humble commentary on that matchless Middle Eastern and Indian story-book “One Thousand and One Nights”. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite of the same name is the perfect musical accompaniment!

 

Scheherazade

 

Tell me, Scheherazade, how you fled

the evil emir like a bleeding lion,

his twisting, vengeful face now full with

requieted lust; your wisdom shines

with light that consumes you in your triumph.

 

Are you easy in your fantastic finery? Do you

ache for the poor thousand, gone in rage

before you, one each day, twelve seasons past?

Will your poésie, your arts and reason finally betray you,

Oh Queen of a thousand stories?

 

I see the new day's dawning loom

over the prayer hall's crescent; can this

be an age when all fantasies

coagulate in earthly doom, rent apart

by insanity's aural gleam?

 

Scheherazade, tell your stories once more

for your worldy servant-dancers;

let the Boléro's artful gifts flood silent

as a sunset into your rich, red soul;

fleet of mind, fragile as silken lace.

 

Christopher Hubbard

Perth. 2016