Sono Porci Questi Romani
I
It does for the time of man to walk here
by the spoken stones forgotten, a criss-crossed empire
sticking its stumps out of cypress. Not a name,
though stone-carved, but what a name
is plastered over it. Not a god in town
but watched his temple changed into a quarry.
And could smile: “Let them change heaven and earth,
if they can: nothing changes the Romans.
Men as they were, beasts as they were, they are.
Their God across the Tiber has stone arms
stretched from his dome like crab’s claws. Can claws hold
them?
A thousand kings have held Rome; none, the Romans
Who knows the goats better than the goatherd?
We piped their lambing from burnt rock
and made a people of them. Rank and graceless,
they are a people yet. And ours. All arches
are one to them. Whatever name is on them,
they read their own. Exactly as we gave it.”
-You hear that gods’ pique everywhere. A jobless
immortality fallen to sneers and gossip.
They’ll rob you blind, kick your shins bloody,
elbow you over the edge, then smile and say “Scusi.”
History? Rome’s no history, but a madhouse.
So, I suppose the original of history.
It does for all of time to walk there
over the unchanged changes like a guard mount,
the same before and after. What’s there to change?
You go to the Vatican or the Pantheon
in the same mob.
And keep your pockets buttoned:
leave one flap open-you’ll learn history.
II
On stone, her stoned knees throbbing like a pulse
in the concussion of holiness, Sister Pia,
vowed to meditation, unwashed, unflinching,
prayed in her stones that days and men be laundered.
“If I am worthy, teach me what I must suffer.”
Ten years upon her knees in the odor of grace.
Spoon-fed a broth a day by those who cleaned her;
the prayer bubbling on through every spoonful.
Ten years on her knees while the stone cell
became a Colosseum and the blood
steamed, hymned, to Heaven from the beasts’
muzzles and the Glory was said and said.
“If I am worthy, bless them.” And was tolled
by bells and the praying shadows of stone,
the Convent black with triumph.—While, at the gates,
a hundred thousand Fiats snarled and screeched.
III
Till one claxon of all rang statues quick:
Mussolini ha sempre ragione. And he came
out of the stones like yesterday-made-easy.
A new statue sprung from every footfall.
Empire! And the mob remembered! It rained stone chips
in Rome all one generation as the masons swung
again. A thousand, ten thousand, a million
stone-thrust-chins for piazzas, dressers, export:
in the mud at Addis Ababa, an Arch of Triumph;
in Libya, on the sand grill, a Colossus;
across the Mare Nostrum in the moon
a bust of glory on the binnacle.
Till all hung upside-down on a northern wall,
suffered as Sister Pia to its stones, and the mob
sang: “Fatto! Viva l’America!” Turned, praying:
‘If I am worthy-Joe, a cigarette.”
IV
It does for the time of all to walk here
by the saved arches and the forgotten surrenders.
An empire of ego figging its thumbs at heaven.
A museum of famines lurking to snatch bread.
A propriety of dressed scorns promenading.
A cradle of prayer bubbling.
As time is. Half a nonsense. Like a guard mount:
the same stone godwatch before and after,
a grandiose serenity with its lips cracked,
smirking: “Let them change heaven and earth,
if they can. Nothing changes a Roman.”
And still a marble marriage pomps the light.
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