QUIET AS THE GRAVE---

 As you know, Fiorella has gathered up her paints and brushes and been finishing off painting a portrait of Edra Gustafson, her beloved voice teacher from long ago, so she has decided to post one of her one poems from long ago about death. It's sort of melancholy, but the last line tells the picture--which is how your girl feels about her talents too.

     Quiet as the grave that holds me fast

When death has dumbed the drumbeat of my blood,

Beneath the soundless soil, still at last,

I'll sink in silence toward the muffling mud.

    But until then, I'll clatter through the halls

And shout hallos to friends and wail goodby--

I'll laugh aloud within the staidest walls

And shriek my anger to the somber sky--

    The dead are not notorious for their noise,

And I will lie a long time a long time quietly,

So until then I'll use my loudest voice

To make the wimpering world resound of me--

     And when at last I'm muted by the all-absorbing ground

     My unaccustomed silence then will deafen you with sound

 

       By the way, the German word for "dead" is tot and it's sort of an  "aw" sound