There was excitement
An undercurrent of expectation
And adventure
It was a new experience,
The city of lights
And narrow streets
Of cobblestones
Running before great buildings of brick and glass
Ancient stones
Caught between the plastic and aluminum
Of purple cars
Their rubber tires
Dwarfed by the ruins
Of greatness.
A sadness wells
And a pensiveness
As the path follows the Tiber
The Fiume Tevere
To see
The Castle of Angels (Castel S. Angelo)
The foreign names fumble over the tongue
Like marbles over gravel.
The city is as it has always been
And has never been
The marble on the Colosseum is stripped
But it stands majestic still
Able to capture the games of long summer days:
The mind drifts to hear the raucous cheers
Smell the burning blood
See the blinding sun
Feel the scorching heat.
The Cicus Maximus
Is a druid's circle
A ring of stone
Where poodles run with their masters
But its sheer size begs to be honoured
Its chariots and charioteers
Maggot-food
And the stuff of legend.
The yellow globes
Light up the city
Under a velvet blanket
And it is not hard to imagine another time
When togas were worn
When Pius II held absolute power
When Michelangelo came to paint
Under the crumbling stones.
There was a sense of adventure
And excitement when I arrived
But I left with so much more.