POMPEII

Once I walked in the rain, thro’ a silent street,
on a cold October day.
No traffic, no sound of hurrying feet,
no laughter of children at play.
Just the hiss of the raindrops, that raised puffs of dust
as they beat on the dry arid ground,
Disturbing the stillness and breaking the silence
that hung, like a shroud, all around.
And still the rain fell, till the dust ceased to rise,
and the water spilled onto the road.
Found the ruts that were worn there by chariot wheels,
became little rivers that flowed
Past the wine-sellers shop, with it’s vast earthen pots
once filled with the wine of the land.
Now empty, and crumbling, the pottery tumbling
to lie in the bottom, like sand.
Next door, in the bakers, stood great cones of stone
where the miller had once ground his wheat.
His last batch of bread there, now blackened and charred,
tho’ it ne’er felt the stone oven’s heat.
And I wandered through houses that still retained signs
of beautiful homes they had been.
I walked on mosaic of many designs,
gazed in awe at each wall fresco scene.
Then I stood on a stage, where actors once played,
surrounded by tiered seats of stone
And I mused on the plays, and the great tragedies
lost in time, never more to be known.
Yes, I peopled that town, with ghosts from the past
Shared their lives for a moment that day
Then the rain ceased to fall, and a silence so vast
dropped it’s shroud, once again, on Pompeii.

FULL CIRCLE (1975)

This planet Earth which man in frenzied haste
Contaminates, pollutes, destroys with nuclear waste
Lays bare that which was green and pleasant land.
Dear Mother Earth, how can you understand.
A thousand million years of your creations
of oil, coal and ore to feed the nations
for all eternity, are now no more.
Mans need, or greed, is greater than before.

What will this generation leave behind, what heritage
for people doomed to follow in some future age.
A plundered Earth, with nothing more to give -
A planet, dead, with no will left to live.
“What then” we ask, to which our men of learning say
“Men will survive when Earth is dead for they
will venture forth in space and build a nation”
But whence the fuel for space-ship emigration?

Thus in their man-made poisoned hell they meet their doom,
And mighty building tumble down to form their tomb.
With empty womb now, will our tired old Mother Earth,
concerned and plagued no longer with mankind and birth,
spin off, and find a place among the stars
To rest some million years or so, and heal her scars.
Till Nature, never daunted, starts again to plan
A microscopic life that will evolve, once more, to man.