Water flowing over rocks and sand
Friday, October 31st, 2008
This is my 2nd favorite river in the United States, the Shenandoah River as it flows through the Shenandoah Valley near Front Royal, VA. My favorite river is The Rainbow River in Marion County, Florida, an unbelievably clear deep river originating in a spring.
There is a new exhibit on Pompeii at the National Gallery of art and it reminded me of this poem that I wrote about Sarasota when I lived there. Herculaneum was on the other side of Mount Vesuvius when it blew up in 79 AD and the town was covered with 20 meters of lava, mud and ash and lay hidden, intact, for 1600 years. According to Wikipedia the town is still being excavated. Sarasota may be lost because of rising ocean levels due to global warming.
Sarasota,
In a thousand years
people will come here
to dive for artifacts
in a world that was lost
like Herculaneum.
We’ll be found in closed rooms
in fetal positions
with coffee cups lined on shelves
and bags of black beans
and garlic in our closets.
Among our bodies they will find
the song of Sarasota,
a place of dancing,
where only one building
was too old to tear down,
and art was worshiped.
They’ll find me smiling,
ages lines removed by a surgeon
who lived in a marble palace,
and they’ll find my closet
still full of shoes
and my dressing room
with a tuxedo
always ready for an opera.
Originally published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 22, 1994.