PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

[after Ambassador George Seferis' poem, "The Last Day,"

translated by Edmund Keeley]

The morning began brightly enough.

But, just before noon, the sky became overcast, and the

sounds of the city---always busy Caesaria---diminished.

Pilate has been in Jerusalem for the feast, to

keep order, you know, to anticipate small problems

before they became uncontrollable disruptions to

Roman commerce and tax collection.  (Every

provincial administrator keeps Sparticus close in mind.)

Asinia, his wife, does as she wishes---

barefoot in the marketplace; homespun instead of

linen or silk (Tiberius has never been able to say

"No," to that face, her grandmother's face when young).

Now she, too, is in Jerusalem, with her husband; she

does as she wishes, and likely speaks her mind.

Full darkness began to seep over us, like the spill of

ink over a virgin parchment, so the changing of the

guards' shift at the Prefecture was a little more tense

than usual.  The sea---from the harbor and as far

toward the horizon as our straining eyes could take in---

looked ashen gray on a flat dead calm.  I thought of

very ancient monuments covered with streaks of

darkening mould, making their inscriptions obscure, and

their faces distorted except when looked at directly.

Did this darkness, I wondered, cover Jerusalem too?

Rome?  Alexandria?  Antioch?  Shopclerks and

stallkeepers began to light candles, lanterns, or torches; and

some just closed for business entirely.  I wondered how

much this delay (the extent of which as yet unknown)

would cost the Roman economy.  And what of our

heavy-laden freighters at sea?  (Alexandria maintains a

lighthouse, but not Caesarea, not Joppa, not even Ostia).

My companion's mood became more somber than usual:

"This must be what slowly dying is like---inconveniences,

"darkness, and any number of troubles to take up the time."

I feared that we might not ever see the sun again.

Would the sun rise out of the gloom to make another bright morning?

J-9thxciv

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