Here is a short Latin poem I wrote as a grief exercise.  It speaks of my late wife and her early death.  This poem is an example of the kind of creative box I like to put myself in.  I like constraints of form to unlock my creative flow.  So I set out to write a poem that expressed my grief, but in a highly structured, contained and subtle way.  What could be more containing than using an antiquated metrical structure in a foreign language!!

I am proud that this poem was selected by the German composer Udo Marx for a choral setting.

ROSA MORIENDA

©2005 Charles Anthony Silvestri

rosa tempus conteret suaviter florescere

ita sua varia occultissima patescere

simul eam incipis subtiliter cognoscere

moritur

The Rose takes her sweet time to open up,

thus to reveal her manifold mysteries;

and just when you begin to understand her...

she dies.

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