THE HANDS THAT HOLD THE OIL LAMP

When archaeologists opened

the tomb of an Etruscan princess

in ancient Tarquinia's necropolis,

her skeleton lay among princely goods

and remains of a funeral feast,

but they soon looked past all the glories of the lost

and were amazed by a little oil lamp

that had been hanging on the tomb wall

for two thousand six hundred years...

When the kings of Rome ruled, it hang there,

when Rome fell to the Celts it hang there,

when Rome burned Carthage it hang there,

when Caesar laid in a pool of blood it hang there,

when Nero watched Rome to burn it hang there,

when Constantine won on Milvian Bridge it hang there,

when Alaric sacked Rome it hang there,

all through the dark ages and the renaissance

it hang there as the popes came, schemed,

went to their graves and got their sainthoods,

through the conquests of Napoleon

and Garibaldi it hang there,

the petty Savoy kings

and the pompous fascists

and the corrupt politicians came,

schemed with the Mafia,

molested underage girls,

and got killed, dethroned,

or slapped on the wrist,

and still it hang there

until the tomb door was opened

and a human hand took it,

just like a human hand

had put it there

and all those twenty-six centuries

were like one evening and one morning

whose light now danced

on the little oil lamp

and no one could see a difference

between those two hands...

24.09.2013-15.07.2020