Ancient Shadows
Editor’s note: Winter was an endurance test this year. We are due for a bit of summer pleasure – words that spice the afternoon heat; mind treks for lazy days. When Claire Day read this piece in writing workshop, it inspired thoughts of “summer reading” and the Virtual Clubhouse. In the spirit of summer and reading, I invited Claire to share her piece in this month’s blog. Enjoy! — Missy Wick
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Guest Blogger:
Claire Day
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Candles: they’re still gleaming in the pages of my mind as if it had been just days ago, not years and years. Thousands of candles passing light one to the other until the whole arena, that shell of ancient times, sparkled with tiny brilliances like the stars above the grey stone walls that had survived the passing of an empire.That first night at the Verona Opera Festival, the light and sky and stars, the orchestra tuning up in harmonious disharmony – all melded in the balmy air of expectation to weave a magic that reaches to this day.
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To sit among the thousands on ancient tiered seats of stone – where toga-clad plebeians had sat before me, awaiting what was to come – to sense the lingering presence of spirit souls was to journey from one age to another. I saw the conquering legions march on sandaled feet through the archway at one end, saw the governor in white robes gaze down from his box above the other. Plumed helmets, swaying tunics, rhythmic thump of feet on sand. And twenty thousand pairs of watching eyes, twenty thousand chattering voices, twenty thousand minds not knowing that their empire’s time, their way of life was finite.
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The opera, Carmen, was magnificent of course; staged, sung, and accompanied by the world’s musical elite. It’s what I tell about the most: the seeing and the hearing. But it’s the feeling that’s stayed with me decades beyond, an absolute sense of history, of having somehow crossed into another age and felt the shadows of ancients move around me.
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Three nights I sat in a haze of wonder, three nights breathing ancient air, in deep, deep gulps so they would last.
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.Claire Day, a transplant from England, is a Founding Member of Straw Dog, and an Amherst Writers & Artists alum. She has been a workshop participant over a span of many years, and,for a time, a workshop leader. During her career as a public school teacher she tried to instill in her students that sense of discovery and enthusiasm that writing always instills in her. Now retired, she is finally about to fulfill the number one item on her bucket list and study for an MFA.
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