Sunday, February 2, 2014

Hadrian's Legacy


Hadrian's Legacy
 
Green hills roll, carved out by rambling walls,
the stones black with moss
feet sink deep into the thick grass, sodden
with centuries of rain.
 
A gravel road weaves its way around clusters of trees,
pastures spattered with multi-coloured sheep,
dappled with red and blue dye.
 
Cars hurtle past on the adjoining highway,
slitting past the stones and sheep.
But besides their whir it is quiet.
 
Calm and a sense of wonder
hangs heavy from the clouds,
and curiosity, a thirst for knowledge seeps through the pores
of all the tourists,
enticing profound thoughts, questions, and theories
out of the mottled stones
of great ancient empires:
emperors, dictators, military strategists,
that we still study today,
 
as American children
we travel thousands of miles to see these stones
that really just look like a bunch of rocks,
but with history as green as the pastures.
 
Two thousand or so years ago,
Emperor Hadrian felt uncomfortable having the savage Scots and barbaric northern Brits
so close to his soldiers
so they built a wall
and he felt better.
They're all dead now
but the stones remain to separate sheep

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