bound by iron
long beyond dead
amphitheatre visited
by graffiti artists and
night-time drunks
Tasso's oak remains
that hillside sentinel
overlooking his beloved
Roma, city of his dreams
where beneath lost leaves
he pondered poems, epics
an imagination once living
which long since penned
verses of love and war
that sometimes escape
the page to live again
while on that *****
beneath dead wood
trapped by iron's bond
quercus sapling grows
a new oak for Tasso


25th April 2025
Roma