Pantheon Winter

Pantheon Winter

Rain falls softly at first, then persistently
Driving pigeons behind great columns
To turn in upon themselves,
Heads buried under one or other wing;
Blue-grey tired feathers on scrawny limbs.
At ground level they lean on their tails
Observing with disdain the solid sky.
In the chilled air a hatless cassocked priest walks by
Unaware of the scathing rejection in the fiery eyes of a dank-feathered
elder.
Back and forth from claw to claw this ancient moves as rain's now
remorseless caress
Is splintered by staccato exhausts.
Plastic coated and summer creased young women on their mopeds splutter
past.
The silence and the trickle of the water
Edging down those pillars which have seen More than you or me.
At the base of one squats the eminence grise
With beady eye and shifty feet.