The toss and turning of traffic
And people frenetic in
A menagerie of ancient sites
And modern sounds.
Foods at every corner,
Next to beggars with forlorn eyes
And venders spruiking the charms of
Everything imaginable.
Scooters zip through traffic
With inches to spare,
As cars and buses
Play a garish game of
Who will go first
And who can avoid
The never ending
Organised chaos
Of this old and ever flowing place.
And through all this human traffic
Runs the ancient river, Tiber,
As silent as a snake,
Winding its way among the trees
And whispering and hissing in the buildings of Antiquity:
The churches,
The squares,
The monuments,
The galleries,
The museums
and the statues lining the ancient ways.
It speaks in its flow about
Times before the empire and the church,
Back to the most primitive of times,
To the epoch of myths:
Of Romulus and Remus
And the she-wolf.
And around the corner,
Among the suburbs,
The edifice of the
Great Colosseum
Stands crumbled and proud,
Tall and imposing,
Flooding with tourists,
A victim of time.
No more can you smell
The flesh of arena death
And the screams
And wails of sport
Written with human blood.
But as you climb it parapets
And look down with awe
On this stage in human history,
The marvel of the grand arena
and its ancient stones
Strikes you with its beauty
And provokes wonder about a people dead
But still forever living,
A people that build a empire,
And carved a passage to today.
25/3/2016