This is for the birthday of a long forgotten opera singer: Nanina Gottlieb. She sang in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at the age of twelve. At seventeen, she sang the heroine of his final opera, "The Magic Flute." She was one of the visitors to Mozart's sick bed, and may have been one of the 3 mysterious veiled women who attended his brief funeral on the steps of St. Stephen's Cathedral. She never married.

A child whispered secrets to me,
A girl child who shivered
At the the ecstatic touch
Of his creation.
These violets and yellow birds
Are for her,
This delirious budding spring.

She told me all -
How, awakened by God's beloved,
She learned E Minor,
How, by the Flute's sweet might,
She walked with her dead Prince
Through Fire and Water
And seventy years - alone.

Through her brown eyes I saw
The Nightmare Queen
Suck a beating heart
Straight through living flesh,
And greedily lap,
Along with his blood,
Music which would have
Enchanted Forever.

In her honor, I offer this,
And bow before Beyond
Beyond whose raven gate
Pamina still sings.