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
