V is for Vigoroso!

For the month of April I will be taking part in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. I will be using two tools besides my trusty computer - my imagination and my dictionary -The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition.. I will turn to the letter of the day, flip the pages and let my fickle finger of fate find the word. Then I'll write - might be a story, might be a rant, might be a poem. Who knows! Do let me know what you think. To go to the list of other participants go here - There's a heck of a lot of blogs and there are many more signed up below me. If you make a comment I will do my darnedest to check out your blog and comment. Spread the love around!

Vigoroso - adj. & adv. Mus. With emphasis and spirit. Used as a direction.



Listen up, my little turtle dove! You must attack this piece with vigoroso! You have been coming to my house for these lessons and every day you get paler and quieter. I know you have the passion in you, my song bird. Remember, if you will, that I found you in that little alley by the market, your father - oh pardon me! your step-father selling moldy onions in the stall while you sang out the wares of the day. You were a calling-card - absolutely! I promised you and I promised him that if he would but let me take you for three hours a day I could turn you from a calling-card to a virtuoso held in the highest esteem. I thought you would want to go from that dirty cage you were in to this! Look at where you are! I am the foremost singing master of this great city. While you are here I treat you like a princess. I feed you food the like of which you've never tasted. I have my own good wife order you up gowns made of the finest silks and linen. I have given your step-father good money to free you for this task and yet you wither before me - no spirit at all. What is it my tiny sparrow?

Thank you, dear master, for reminding me of your goodness. I know I should be grateful and indeed I am happy that I am no longer kept in a dirty cage but ... and I know no other way of saying this - I am still in a cage. My circumstances have changed in some ways but not in the essential. And so my voice loses heart every day. Before I could dream of freedom - now that dream is even taken from me.