"The Mausoleum at Rosarno" ("Shallow Graves Singing")

Felix had written “Shallow Graves” as a serenade for Mia for one of their wedding nights, four or five years earlier. An instrumental for String Quartet and Piano, the title refers to the timelessness and immortality of real love. He often performed it at Maxine’s garden galas, with Mia improvising a dance. Once settled in Chicago, living in a transient’s hotel next to a music school where he worked as a janitor, the exiled composer returned to his serenade, “Shallow Graves”, adding vocal parts to the tender melodies. Entitled “The Mausoleum at Rosarno”(“Shallow Graves Singing,”) it was performed by the students and faculty of the school at an evening end-of the-year concert. Felix Sebastian Culpa was last seen at the afternoon rehearsal, standing by the back door, listening in the shadows.

Shallow Graves Sin...

They’re standing in a room,
A room of memories,
A looking glass, a loving cup, pictures in need of frames;
The things they saved for their importance.

She sees him as he is,
He sees her as she was,
While in a room they’ve yet to see, tomorrow dances all alone,
To music, mute, but in their dreaming.

Like lovers everywhere,
Lost in hyperbole,
They think that they are all alone, that they’re the only ones
To whom this moment is occurring.

We see them in that room;
We think it all in vain.
She cannot help but see, he cannot turn away. They sacrifice
The things they saved for their protection.

Don’t worry they can’t hear you.
They are what we were once, and what we someday are to be:
Timeless souls in shallow graves, never once knowing.

Someday what we now see,
Will cry out to be framed.
Around some vague, enormous room together we will dance,
To music, mute, but in our sighing.

Don’t worry they can’t harm you.
They are what you have hid,
Buried in shallow graves.

They’re standing in a room.
The room is very still.
The light begins to fade.
The dance has just begun.
The room is spinning.

“Nothing meant to be can ever be denied,
Though in our hearts we’ve often tried.
Somewhere out beyond the fear our hearts contain
Motionless bits of dreams remain.”

“Good Night, my love, with whom I rest in all my dreams.
A vague, enormous room appears, and from all time,
And for all time,
We’re free.”


Felix S. Culpa