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.