PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

As you had thought, Augustus ruined the trip.

After acceding to his thoughtless wish

you caught this fever.  Carried from the ship

to these rooms to recover, you despair

of any such recovery.  The air

stinks most of rotten lumber and dead fish.

The manuscript that you had hoped to burn

must be preserved.  You wrote, once, of a child

to be born, somehwere, in the vast empire---

sometime---and he would bring a golden age's

blessing to this world, and, foremost, to Rome.

For His sake, you must not destroy the poem

about Aeneas, much as you desire

to leave behind no uncorrected pages.

A young man, not yet born, will someday read,

in your lines, inspiration to discern

that Roman justice must be more than fair.

His future will bring mediocrity

as an administrator much reviled

by staff and subjects, all of whom have grim

thoughts of his brutal, managerial style

imposed upon them roughly, tactlessly.

But, one day, at a certain, hasty trial---

one that will bring this world its greatest shame---

one that will change all peoples' history---

your lines will lay on his thoughts one last claim,

to show some little fairness (of a sort)

to one accused unfairly in his court,

saying (to the accusers, a retort,
sharply pronounced):  "I find no fault in Him."

Starward

[jlc]