Time and Music Stood Still

Dr Abe V Rotor

  

Century old German violin, Ulbrich Tatter, attacked by wood beetles. Fortunately only the violin case was  damaged; the violin has retained its timbre and melodious sound. A personal collection of the author. The violin is still used in teaching kids in the neighborhood.       

Childhood and old age - how far apart
     by time, and music silence by it,
save blood curdling sounds in the night,
     of tiny beetles gnawing bit by bit.

When at sunrise the world an Edvard Grieg born,
     at sundown a Mozart's requiem;
and the world an audience in the night 
     to Edgar Allan Poe's scary game.  

Life, how wasted in the hands of many.
     with neither ear,  nor joy, nor love,
for music more than a Bacchus flair, 
      buoys the spirit, the heart to throb.
    
Life, if ever by time and music denied,
     has yet its golden rays all to cast;
And remembering Longfellow's tale of Acadie,
     the past always comes back to us . ~

  

 
Death-watch beetle, and its close relative powder post beetle,
Xestobium rufovillosum and Anobium punctatum, receptively.