Perfect Harmony

Pianos’ ebonies and ivories,

Entwined in perfect harmony of hue,

Resound on keyboards: thirty-six black keys

Fit next to fifty-two in white—when new.

Euphonic sound results, and since you hear

Chords tinkle, Number One’s a way to term

This black-white synergy. It has a peer:

How Congo Basin’s native pachyderm

Assiduously gobbles forest fruits—

Replanting ebony to save the tree

Musicians use for fretboards—constitutes

One other synergy where ebony

Needs ivory. And since it works through poo,

You’d term this synergy a Number Two!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud. The poem was prompted by the CNN story “Your guitar may depend on elephant poop. Here’s why.”