Mahler Family Letters

I.      To Gustav (1910)

        I arrive (on this Sunday) in an envelope addressed to your wife as the sole intention of a blind thief, and I
        extend my condolences on behalf of a dozen indifferent universes, because that is an idea that you can
        hold in your mind for all time. If you should seek to redeem your credit, I ask you to conduct your
        business in the burning friction of a rosined bow, until your fury grows cold, like unplucked strings and
        unstroked keys. Burn through each of nine symphonies unto ten, for cursed death arrives at your desk like
        a piece of unsolicited mail. I am one wrong note, Gustav. It t may comfort you to know: He has loved your wife,
        so you may go.

        Yours faithfully,
        Fate


III.    From Anna Mahler (1988)

      Dearest Vater,

      A shadow makes a gloomy inheritance
      like clay makes stone cold forms.
      I am your sculptress daughter.

      In Germany, America, Italy
      scholars write the end of the tenth
      like they are finally raising Mahler’s lost progeny.

      I am now eighty-three years old and five times divorced of an artist.
      I am leaving these places
      of lost children and found legacies.
      Tell them I am coming and that

      I am your sculptress daughter.