-Homage to Cinema Paradiso: Love Theme
	as performed by trumpeter Chris Botti
 
I sit on the stage of a family dinner 
facing the pearl set in silence. 
What use can an old mother oyster be: 
just ancestor in waiting. 
I step closer, take her hand, 
see the fields where we sang, 
and scattered flowers. 
It is said that flowers cling 
to those who are afraid. 
She brushes me away 

into criss-cross nights, 
where light and shade mark up 
alleys, clubs, hushed martinis, 
runny leftovers—designed by need. 
Botti, your mouth cups a room where 
the wild oyster glides unhinged 
in the night play of flesh and melody, 
before turning to rock. 

Where secrets bleed out 
to tipsy strangers—
about one family part folded inside the other 
like bedrock; then turbulence, 
scattered particles, unable to re-attach. 
Willed far away, yet so near, 
they are cliffs, staged in isolation. 

On the mount you stand and blow, 
growl, tremble, flutter, moan, 
cry up and down angry walls. 
Prophet, mouthpiece—
activate the jilted ancestors, 
crack open the codes. Forgive us. 

Enter me as slow rain dissolves rock. 
Run your tongue, run your lips, 
raise your horn, slow—
hold beyond holding until the note 
spills across forsaken skies. 
Entice the spirits to return, 
to pass on what has not been said. 

In this oyster room buried deep, 
bitten out of time, family voices rise, 
frame by frame, in malice, 
then collapse—
an undressing, mouths severed 
from word, from blame; rather, species 
struck together in original song. 

I kneel before them and weep, 
here, where stars listen, 
in this room consecrated 
by the night 
and the melody