When I die, I will miss
A woman’s long hair in the wind,
Not a timeless thing, but a thing
Without concern for time,
The way Rome always reminds
Of Greece, and Greece reminds
Of salt air and vines.

No matter what I said,

No matter how I told you,

the columns
still fall

the roads
still grow old

and the vines
drape the necks
of marble molds

In Rome, the forum--
I can think of nothing but
Madison Square
Gardens
and the stone that should be old

I think of the Roman--
and the fields of wheat
I think of man
and the sowing of seed

how fallow the winds,
how empty the streams.

I think of the columns
I think of the streets
I think of the cities
I think of these

And I
could not help but weep.

The elucubrations of the lute, pulsing from the finger strums of starlight,
Plum-twilight of the Colosseum like an emperor’s bowl of plucked fruit,
As the night’s ghost-gods are tuned to Castel Sant’Angelo, Hadrian’s tomb,
Who drink the dwindling hours from the wine-stemmed glass of musical moon.

But come the times out of tune, the dwindling of stone is the going blind of Rome:
Rome is built upon millions of eyes closed with the underside of their lids tattooed,
By labyrinthine aqueducts, far-aging roads, and traceries of Nero’s Golden Home.
Then death its sight-sun blooms through; death the architect of Seven Hills renews.

Rome has set on the sun,
Spreads the rays of its streets
And the warmth of its torches.
Caesar commands nightfall come,
To make florid incense and wine
And talk as one full of the moon.

Her dark hair falls like the lowered trumpets,
Soundless as the eyelid-close of Accursed Gates,
Past the city’s outer walls and alley-clotted throes,
Some shield-hearted soldier sent to his earthen fold,
Her blood-rimmed sky-lids of night foretell the phantom peace
Of Autumn like a head sinking down with the fell-purpled leaf of war.

***
Love, you once guided the black looms of Autumn,
Olive-skinned druid, you are a dark everything,
And a toss of your hair flings to dust all of Rome.

Poor man, in recognizing his own wretchedness sole
Upon the Plains of Tunis, and the pillars of smoke

His enemy obliterated from the earth
But their soul,
Not so.

Rome, his daughter, to one day be given to the field
To be cast as coin and
As a slave, sold

The gift of Scipio's victory
Fades unknown
as the iron fence on the gates
Pounded by salted airs
And lost to bitter seas

Or the broken spines of buildings drenched in sanguine pleas
Of the demolished, pitiful
Defenders of brooding earth.

But do not despair young Scipio!
Your tears need not plant themselves upon these sands
And sow these seeds of eventuality

Rise your Saber and shield, order the command
For the sake of love and power,
For the glory of your state

Be proud, you great Achilles, ye servant soldier clean,
Wash the blood beneath you, and give to them their deeds

These men who dared defy you, your presidential will,
The men who walked beside you, who suffered every ill

To them you make this pact, to them your will enact--

To them your curse betrays you, to kin and king exact.