Daily Poem, July 5, 2009

I've been thinking about Rome today. If you go there, don't buy bottled water, you can drink the water from the aquaduct wherever you see it flowing. It's cool and clean and tastes great. If you go up to the Palantine Hill, there's a great spigot on the walk down to the Forum.

Water

We drink from a stone box in an ancient wall.
We drink from a copper spigot with a lion’s mouth.
We drink from the Alps transported.
We drink from arches crossing valleys and rivers.
We drink from the hands of slaves nailed to crosses along the roads to Gaul.
We drink from pine woods, terraced fields, rock gorges, wind farms in the east.
We drink from city states, their mines outside of town, their cathedrals.
We drink from each Caesar, especially Augustus.
We drink from Lydia’s cruets and urns, her breasts afloat in rose-petalled water.
We drink from hands stretched out in supplication, in condemnation, in applause.
We drink from the graves of each poet and painter buried in the English Cemetery.
We drink from Senegalese illegals selling Chinese Pashminas on via del Croce.
We drink from the spray paint artist squatting on her heels on via Barbieri, switching out
her templates as she builds each Trevi or St. Peter’s on paper.
We drink from the flecks of green on green in the pistachio gelato, the swirl red in the
framboise.
We drink from the gypsies begging, their babies’ heads lolling on their arms.
We drink from the glad light of palazzos and piazzas as dusk settles on the city, from the
rain freckled streets, the red metro buses hurtling under
ground.
We drink from the tiny sparrow picking crumbs between the stones in front of the Arch of Triumph and the bride and groom having their portrait taken.
We drink from the spigot in the shadow of the Palantine. We wet our hands. We wet our arms. We splash our faces with the flow of Rome.
And we drink.