Dear Sun Spots: You continue to please and interest so many of us with your well informed answers to our questions. Here I am again, but this time with a renewed interest in grave markings. My favorite great uncle had three wives and at one time a housekeeper who today would be known as “a significant other.” When his second wife passed away, the inscription on her tombstone read “one by one we pass away.” The third wife left very specific directions to be buried out of the state. I thought this might be of interest to readers. – No Name, No Town.
Answer: Sun Spots was struck by the tombstone’s inscription and, naturally enough, went searching to see what the origins might be. She located Il Maestro del Violino by poet Emily Fragos and first published in The American Voice and posted on www.//bostonreview.net/BR22.3/Sampler.html
The poem notes that those afflicted with incurable diseases would go to the Incurabili, founded in Venice in 1522. There, hundreds of abandoned children were provided with music lessons and were taught to perform at Mass and at Vespers.
Il Maestro del Violino
Somewhere behind the huge thick doors
deep within the bowels of the Incurabili
on the Zattere a long paved street facing
the Giudecca and named for the rafts
that unload their wood there
we live until we die and are taught
our lessons by Maestro Matteo Puppi
who plays violin by day and composes admirable
sonatas by night of full harmonious
music for us to play.
Sweet-faced angels he calls us and
once a lovely man he called friend with
hair the color of carrots and eyes as green
as Chiaretta’s parrot came to hear
us play his concerto and pronounced us
marvels of great facility and expression.
Signor Vivaldi patted me on the head
and sparkled like a star so bright in the sky
that he turned night to day.
Those of us still pretty enough
to leave give concerts in the open air
and return to tell of shrieking gulls and
large faces and the warm breeze that blows
across our bare legs and arms as thin as reeds.
Francesca conducted our chorus with sound
flowing like water the light glinting off this voice
and then off another.
When she died, I played my instrument in a
monotonous frenzy all high-pitched and piercing
and made Him hold his ears in pain.
My cat Gatto is fat with the rats he catches every day
strolling about the dark halls with a skinny tail hanging
from his mouth.
One by one we pass away and are buried
under signs in the garden behind. We can see
the markers from our windows and speak to our
friends who listen from above. We appear only as first names
and the instruments we played: Francesca
del coro, Luciana organista, Luciete dalla viola,
Anna Maria and Silvia del cello. Me, I am
Sofia del violino.
Once I saw myself in a clear puddle of rain
water. My teeth are very crooked, I know. We
are none of us startled by the other. We are all
the same. To Heaven.
Dear Sun Spots: Do you know where people can get dentures made or fixed? There was an article recently in the Sun Journal about a place opening in the L/A area. Can you please provide this information? – No Name, No Town.
Answer: The Auburn Denture Center, 120 Center St., Suite 109, Auburn, held its opening and was featured in the Jan. 3 business section of the Sun Journal. You might also check the Yellow Pages for additional businesses.
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