"M'APPARI TUTT' AMOR..."
('She appeared to me full of love...')

Here in the church
of my father's carpentry

the incense is
of pine

sunlight genuflects
through the window

wood curls
in religious ecstasy

a blue bottle
preaches an  iridescent  sermon

a choir of dust motes
make this a heaven

as my father hums
"M'appari tutt' amor.."

this my epiphany
of the ordinary

this the everyday
prayer

I bow my head to
the saw as it sings

"....bella si che il mio cor ..."

*

You can see this sung as a charming serenade in the film BREAKING AWAY ! and in the soapuds episode from ***** WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and used here and there in Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW.There are also two swing versions.

My Da didn't know any of this and it was just a passing air on the radio that got stuck in his head and he would hum or la la la it every now and then as he hammered or sawed without knowing anything about it! It was only years later when he was 90 that I was able to tell him what it was and get him a recording of Domingo singing it.

Of course it features highly in a certain Mr. Joyce book as well. Caruso had made it popular and Joyce always a big Caruso fan( he had hoped to do an interview with the great man when he came to Dublin but that came to nothing.)