Gianicolo (cont'd)
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Your
dominion knows no bounds as you posses fully the city, turning it over
and over like a sweet candy on your tongue. An echo from an age thousands
of years gone winds its shadows along the broken and dusty remains of
the Foro Romano, brick and marble jerryrigged back together by Mussolini's
iron staples and megalomanical fancy. The echoes remind you that you once
reigned over the entire western world. Your presence was felt and feared
even beyond the Pax Romana that you ruled through the Caesars of
antique millenniums. The Forum columns that still stand do so for your
victories, your triumphs, your Rome.
You
gather it all to your sweating breast and love it with the throb of your
heart, for it is your city and yours alone. Your blood pulses for it as
strongly as it does for your parents, your own children, your most intimate
lover. You guard it jealously and refuse to admit that anyone else could
possibly lay claim to your vicoli, your tiny restaurants, your marble
street signs embedded in sixteenth-century palazzo walls, your stray cats,
your opera, your dripping laundry, your cobblestones, your art, your history,
your Rome.
As you stand against the sunburnt wall of the Gianicolo rising out of
Trastevere, you know, and love, and possess all of Rome.
And Rome responds.
As you kiss its choked air, caress its broken curves gently with your
eyes, fill your mind with nothing but its well-worn and perfectly marred
beauty, Rome responds. It, too knows your mind. It, too loves your heart.
And it, too owns your soul.
Copyright
© 1994 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved. |