Cities and empires,
magnates, generals, and politicians,
decades, centuries, and millennia
all pass away,
giving way to one another
as do the seasons of the year
(often in storms of blood and hunger,
I fear)
Art and poems, however,
are much hardier.
The Bard and his sonnets,
Swift and his Gulliver,
Mozart and Donatello,
Basho, Confucius, and Li Bai:
such do not die easily
but powerful even in mendicancy,
they long outlive their mortal bones,
and future worlds
embrace the seeds they've sewn :
in the soil of photography or philosophy,
canvas, music,
or even the world theatric
What matters is not mostly the form
but the authenticity,
the ambition, and the dedication
Yes, long after power's passed from Rome,
powerful still is the Latin tome
