Vesuvius Erupting Soon After The Landings At Salerno, March, 1944
Beautiful Sparks of God
funeral home collage of history,
unsure whether we be bound or free;
ruins, fossils,
fire-drinkers of the dew:
Vesuvius erupts
and world war, too.
I go through the tomes for what I may see,
and find the works of the old Livy;
beauty ejecta
a baleful rain yields!
not in Elysium
but Phelgræean fields!
photos and videos, like leaves on a tree,
bold brushstrokes of vanish’t conspiracy;
buried in ash
the soot of noon-day,
pyroclastic x-flow
in the streets of Pompeii !
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notes
I have found the usual ways of talking about the separation from a loved one are awfully opaque and trivial to express what I feel. I am still trying to express it.
My father was at Salerno. Soon after, the volcano Vesuvius erupted.
Beautiful sparks of God - "Freude, schoener Gotterfunken" from Ode to Joy
world war, too - world war II
Livy - Titus Livius observed the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Pompeii
ejecta - things ejected and thrown by the eruption... I seem to remember Livy was sitting on a boat in the bay watching the spectacle, and probably dodging ejecta.
Phelgræean - sulphurous fields, the opposite of Elysium
x-flow - extreme flow
we are buried in our remembrances: photos, videos, souvenirs. The soot of noon-day is darkness at noon.
There is an end and the promise of an archaeological beginning in the future.
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