Pic and a Word Challenge #189: It’s so quiet

Today there is plenty to be found around here: a beautiful song, a haiku, and some of the mortacci mia – my and the nation’s dead at the Slovenian largest cemetery. Yesterday my grandmother would have been almost 100.

First a song that came to mind immediately after thinking of Slovenian word for “quiet”: tih. Tihe so njive (“Quiet are the fields”) by Slovenian singer/songwriter Tomaž Pengov.

Since I usually write a poem on Sundays, here is a haiku.

Quiet “e” makes “quite” “quit”
quietly. Then guilt guiles quilts. 
Guilty. I Quito. 

And finally, here is a memory from last summer when I walked to the Žale Cemetery with my mother, like we used to do every November 1st to visit our dead. Slovenians tend to overdo death – the graves, the candles, the works. As if it’s easier to take care of people once they are dead.

Here are graves of some soldiers, artists, mothers, fathers and some others, including two of my grandparents and two sets of my great-grandparents. They might be quiet but their graves speak and this is what I heard.

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  Almost a straight line from my parents’ home to the cemetery.

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  With mom around there is joy even here. ❤

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  Russia salutes their dead with cranes.

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  Austria salutes all victims of war with this breaking of the chain.

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  This pillar says: ALMA MATER ITALIA. Today it celebrates its Republic Day.

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  I see a five-pointed star, you? ADD-IT: Father notes that he died in a car crash in 1972. He was the pilot.

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  Now it’s artists’ turn. Tone Lapajne, sculptor and painter.

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  Represented by his work of art.

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  As is sculptor Boris Kalin, I presume. Quite beautiful.

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  Here lie the husband and wife, both sculptors. I only guess she is responsible for Marko’s head.

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  I must say that I have not heard of Ferdo Mayer before, but he was obviously a painter.

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  This one shall remain nameless. A bit over the top?

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  Poet, essayist and critic Aleš Debeljak: “Here, For You, There”.

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  Tomaž Pengov, whose song you’ve just heard, about quiet fields, and his artistic family.

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  Beloved radio sports commentator Franci Pavšer. His son walks in his shoes and continues his work.

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  He was simply “Our dad”.

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  And she was Viktorija, “the mother of eleven children”.

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  My grandparents, Nada and Janez. Forever together. ❤ ❤ I bet they are still playing cards every evening.

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  In the same grave, Hana and Janko, parents of my grandpa Janez. There is a certain peace in keeping them together like this.

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  Not far away, Ivana and Jernej, my other great-grandparents. My opera and Italy-loving grandma Nada was their daughter. Silva was her younger sister.

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  And for the end, the grave that nobody looks at twice. Small and insignificant.

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  And yet it conceals Jože Plečnik, the famous architect who designed half of this cemetery and a large chunk of Ljubljana, including the Triple Bridge, the Arcades at the Market and the National and University Library. Well played. Sometimes silence speaks loudest.

And here we are, four generations of women, making sure that I don’t fall, from the oldest to the youngest: Ivana, Nada, Meta, Manja.

Photo: Father.

In response to Patrick Jennings’ Pic and a Word Challenge #189: Quiet