Libretto

Luigi Illica
Librettist for Puccini

Francesco Maria Piave
Librettist for Verdi

our intimacies
are reserved for
Puccini and Verdi
indelible orchestral
bones feel grand
passions of opera
crescendos that
tingle the spine
played with audible
fingers we recognize
time and again

but what do we know
of the poets who
paint upon notes
bringing scores
to their stories
with words speaking
triumphs and tragedies
giving emotional
substance to voices
we celebrate even
the more than the
greatest composers

pray tell what
did Caruso Luciano
or Sutherland sing
but for poetry laid
in the candlelit ink
of obscurity verses
transposing the
suffering human
condition to song
lyrics lifted from life
born in garrets
on writing desks
flowing from quills
of anonymous minds