Rome creates a desert
and calls it peace…*
Alas for mangled vineyards,
charred olives, trampled wheat;
alas for children bleeding
in rubble of the street;
the sands will be the victor
in fiefdoms of the East,
as gardens sink in ashes
beneath death's barren lease,
and they decree new deserts
where wells flowed deep and sweet,
carving out a wasteland
where widows grieve and weep,
as they impose new orders
where clans once herded sheep,
harvesting the chaos
that bitter spore must yield
to those who reap the whirlwind
and deem such deserts "peace".
*Tacitus, after the rout of an
insurrection, led by the Celtic queen
Boudicaa, against Rome's occupation
of Britain.
And they have called it peace...
© Copyright: Jena Woodhouse, 2004
Свидетельство о публикации №104032500270
Свидетельство о публикации №104032500270
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