Dreams

Carpe Diem #668, 

dreams

Credits: The Dream post-impressionism painting by Henri Rousseau

"The Dream is the largest of the jungle paintings. It features an almost surreal portrait of Yadwigha (Jadwiga), Rousseau's Polish mistress from his youth, lying naked on a divan to the left of the painting, gazing over a landscape of lush jungle foliage, including lotus flowers, and animals including birds, monkeys, an elephant, a lion and lioness, and a snake. The stylised forms of the jungle plants are based on Rousseau's observations at the Paris Museum of Natural History and its Jardin des Plantes. The nude's left arm reaches towards the lions and a black snake charmer who faces the viewer playing his flute, barely visible in the gloom of the jungle under the dim light of the full moon. A pink-bellied snake slithers through the undergrowth, its sinuous form reflecting the curves of the woman's hips and leg.

One possible interpretation of the painting, offered by Rousseau in a letter to art critic André Dupont, is that it depicts a woman reclining on a couch in Paris, dreaming she is listening to a flute player in the jungle.

Suspecting that some viewers did not understand the painting, Rousseau wrote a poem to accompany it, Inscription pour La Rêve:

Yadwigha in a beautiful dream
Having fallen gently to sleep
Heard the sounds of a reed instrument
Played by a well-intentioned [snake] charmer.
As the moon reflected
On the rivers [or flowers], the verdant trees,
The wild snakes lend an ear
To the joyous tunes of the instrument."  (all copied from Carpe Diem Haiku Kai)

Host of the haiku group has provided his haiku inspired by the painting:

world asleep
birds sing their song
moonlight serenade

(c) Chèvrefeuille


Here will be my attempt.

hushed beasts
notes dance with moonbeams
lotus perfumed dreams

©  Janice Adcock

Thanks to Chèvrefeuille for daily prompts on 

CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI