On the 257th Anniversary of theBirth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
was born on the 27th of January in 1756.
Today marks the 257th anniversary of his birth.
The following are my thoughts and images
from a visit in 2009 to his memorial
at St. Marx cemetery.

A wreath of roses and spring flowers
had been laid at the foot
of the grave stone marker,
and a white candle was burning nearby.

It has been snowing in Vienna, all week.
I imagined little Wolferl
being born on a day like this:
A heavy snow storm in the early morning hours,
with the clouds parting at noon,
allowing for a few minutes of sunshine
to caress the face of the newborn genius.

A bouquet of pale yellow roses
had been left by another Mozart loving soul.
They were frozen stiff,
as if to enshrine their beauty forever.
It warmed my heart thinking that someone
had come out all the way,
walked up the long hill,
maybe in a snow storm as I did,
to offer this token of love.

Another friend
had brought a single rose,

gently posing it
on the angel's pedestal.

A red rose kissed
by the winter morning's sun.

An angel,
keeping watch,
pensively,
cloaked in sunlight.

257 years,
so many years full of music, his music,
source of untold delights and
unimaginable moments of sheer joy.

Somewhere in these hallowed grounds,
Wolfgang Amadeus was laid to rest,
yet his music is with us, to this day.
Music of the spheres
brought down to earth,
not by celestial bodies,
but by a human genius.

The wreath,
a gift by Pension Mozart.
Photographed in January 2009
at Vienna's St. Marx Cemetery
First published in 2009