The last remnants of the life of the writer Anna Maria De Leo – for decades an adorable teacher of grateful generations of schoolchildren – were years of suffering, as if all the pain that had rained down on her in her youth hadn’t been enough. Her voice – which had enchanted everyone, even prisoners, when she brought them singing comfort, in the fabulous Seventies – had become a tremulous thread, even the sparkle of dreams had almost become fossilized in the depths of her eyes, only the elegance was remained intact. The fake gruff but very good Gianni guarded his uncertain steps, illuminating his path with caressing care. A few years ago, traveling back in time, she published “Frozen is Winter”, a torn love song, a beautiful, heartbreaking epistolary novel dedicated to her young husband Nicola Parisi, who passed away half a century ago now. Instead of writing the review of this book that brought me to tears, I invented the last letter to send to the husband of the very young and beautiful Anna Maria. The poet Anna Santoliquido remembered her with these significant words: “Dear Angela, the International “Women and Poetry” Movement mourns a beautiful, generous soul, full of feelings. I seem to see her when she sang for us, with her sweet voice and the passion of an authentic artist”.
Embracing with infinite affection all her loved ones – Lina, Lizia, Mimmo, Pino, Silvana, Gianni, her splendid girls… -, I propose the article here again, even if I seem to see two newlyweds smiling in an eternal light as if spring, up there…
Dear Mr Nicola Parisi, even though I have never met you, I know everything about you. Even the facial features are mine
known, imagine: a darting look, two thin hawk moustaches, a sharp and, how can I say?, almost noble face. I know that she enjoyed coloring dreams into canvases full of charm and beauty, she traveled the world with a camera, she studied to win the healthcare competition and on TV she followed, above all, surgical operations and space missions. Up there, crouched between one cloud and another, he must be wondering why a stranger like me knows all these details and even has the audacity to write them. It is soon revealed. She left a void of love down here inside a heart that distilled her tears into words that cry out all their torment in a book of painful grace entitled “Winter Is Cold”, published by
published by a publishing house with a significant name, “light” in ancient Greek, not by chance. Because the one who wrote it loved her with the desperate strength of a child’s heart, prisoner of memories of youth and happiness, which hurt even more when everything is cruelly erased. Abolished.
Destroyed. As if on the sun of the sky of the soul a hand, arrogant, without a reason, cast a veil of dark mourning over us and there was nothing left to do. And so joy becomes sadness. White, invincible black.
The day, perpetual night.
The fact is that the author, since that cursed day 44 years ago, when a horrible, absurd, iniquitous accident kidnapped her from this earth, has never stopped – yes, the dates indicate a decade, but in the silence of the chest there is the eternity of the most musical feeling in the history of humanity – of writing resigned, angry, passionate letters, emptied of everything and yet inflamed with truth and passion. This song of love and death by Anna Maria De Leo – but I know that you, kind Nicola, didn’t need me to write it – is an epistolary novel that delves into the soul of the reader. Because inside her there is a life sacrificed on the altar of absolute dedication to her and to the memory of the joyful existence of two, paved with sharing, projects, emotions. Those everyday celebrations that give a glittering smile to the heart. Among these excruciating sheets of solitude she will also meet her sister-in-law Lina, who for years has acted as a chosen messenger – being a true poet, it will have come easily to her – of news from the world where she has been blowing ever since, having now climbed over the wall of shadow. There are the two little Isabella and Nicoletta – “wonders, little roses, masterpieces”, for their mother – and the older one who called her dad in front of the paintings or placed her photograph on the now deserted pillow and hoped that she would sleep peacefully who knows where. Finally, the respectful, great Gianni, who with ancient patience took the pieces of his past and placed them gracefully next to those of Anna Ma’s broken mosaic.
to give her another hope, even if fleeting. Because tomorrow the untreatable wound will bleed again, no one should be fooled. Therefore, Mr. Nicola, know that if he were to see a dove that, flying lightly in the blue among the angels, tries to kiss you sweetly with one wing, he should know that, in reality, it will be a book: this book. Yes, I also know what he wants me to tell Anna Maria: that she, from those seemingly distant but very close lands, has never taken her eyes off her beloved bride, her suddenly blind house and her little ones who have become splendid women. at this point. Yes, and I will also not forget to tell them that those drops that sparkle on the rose petals in the morning are not drops of dew…
