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I see the world. I see its history. I see that it is full of war and peace. I see how it is full of families and love and grief. There is good and evil in this world, and we humans have heard the lessons taught about the good and the bad. But remember this, life is not the opposite of death. Birth is the opposite of death. Being born is part of life. And so. Is.
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God’s gift to life.
Thank you.
This morning chill was delightful but now
I close all the windows. Heat of the day
threatens my sense of security. No
more fresh air dare I to let enter here
until late afternoon shall return, God
willing, and I may once more kiss the sky.
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Bread and butter, at times, can be delicious.
Thank you oh Lord give us our daily.
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And moo.
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motorcyle growls up the road outside
my ears tingle and respond inside
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hillside rabbits and coyote
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I measure my life in bare feet.
Your eyes see my toenails. Ugly
thoughts interrupt our consciousness.
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On the hillside, a bird sings twice.
Can you measure it? No? Why not?
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I am writing these words with invisible slant
as fingers kiss the keys who open your link; it
breaks archeology into mound hearts. Shall tell
me your thought-crime, sex-crime, stolen rats, but
none of your all-expense-paid ministry of lying truth
where inner party members have it so much better. The
point is not that at all, no, that was not what I meant at all
except after wine and whatever there’ll be nothing left to tell.
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Anaxos .
At the eastern edge of the Roman empire, the province of Syria stretches toward the Euphrates. At that river, we mark the edge of western power. To the north, under the arms of Rome, the lands of Anatolia and Capadocia are full of towns, farms, orchards, valleys and hills. From there into the east, come the Parthian lands. The great river, Euphrates, winds and cuts its fat thread south into Mesopotamia. North and then east, around the mountains of Ararat, ancient Armenia dances in and out the hands of both Rome and the Parthians.
Three hundred years after Alexander the Great desroyed the Persian empire, Rome has replaced Macedon, while Parthia has replaced Persia. The two of them continue to fight their wars and make their sometime peace. Half our known world, however, still speaks Greek.
Anaxos, the son of Anaxagoras, grew up and learned to write his story around these lands of two empires. He worked and traveled nearly eighty years with his family in their cargo and caravan business. Even as a child, he displayed great talent for speaking languages. His parents, part-owners of the trading network, encouraged and helped his linguistic ability. When only five, they hired a tutor, a deeply educated man, a priest from the Esagila temple in Babylon. Enkidu by name, he remained with the family all the years of his life. When younger, he had married a Naabataean woman who could ride and fight almost as well as any man. Sometimes she rode with them. Sometimes as a princess.
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In Anaxos’ middle age, his beloved master Enkidu suffered what we must all go through. Death. We live in this world, having been born to it. We leave with our own death. Inevitbly. Dutifully. Diligently, or in extremis. To us all this passage must come, each in its own same way different.
But I digress.
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When Anaxos was a baby, he heard voices rising from the streets, four floors below the rooftop where his family lived in summer night. Shade-covered sky patios caught the breeze from any shift of wind. Airshaft and open courtyard moved heat away from walls, up above the house. Nearby flat rooftops captured whatever rare and precious rain might fall. Half a year they live in soft tents spread on top the house; there they slept, embracing every night for its cool breath. Touch sleep, they said to themselves. Each other.
He will remember hearing in the morning how voices rose up from animals and people crying out their business in the street. The Anaxagoras family lived inside the city, a block before the gate that leads out toward the royal canal. A huge market spreads out there, in open spaces where three roads come together near the water.
The great new city, Seluccia on the Tigris, was huge. Three or four hundred thousand people and all their donkeys, mules, camels, dogs, birds, all of it living on the fertile backside of the river, surrounded by farms and orchards of ancient, rich, Mesopotamia.
He changed there, growing from baby into boy, then older into young man. He would remember, however, that before he could walk, he was already listening to the voices of people and animals.
Heard them calling out a flow of sound that rose and fell with the coming and the going of day and night. They were always mumbling and clattering over there where the distant market spread beyond canal gate. Sometimes the sellers would pass along the street by the tall house, vendors singing out, advertising their wares, in case someone in the courtyard would want to stop them to buy something fresh or sweet or strong and tasty.
The boy learned their songs and heard their different languages. Sweet fruit water in solid gourd jugs strung upon a donkey back and sides. Pieces of cloth from nomad weavers and sheep-herding tribes. Baskets of fresh-baked pockets of bread. Bits of stray metal. Leather.
When weather was good he got taken to the market, even as a baby, to see and learn. Soon saw how everywhere he went the people knew his family. Later learned why.
Finally, when he was five and six, he began to go there with Enkidu the teacher. Those days, after they came home from the market, the sharp tutor would drill Anaxos on the languages heard that day.
Also, Enkidu helped the family do some shopping. Gradually became more and more part of the business. The Babylonian partmer, people called him. The growing boy meanwhile learned to bargain with almost everyone and everything in any language at the market. The family decided it was now time for him to go on a larger, longer trip. With one of the caravans. That was how Anaxos came to know the road partners who worked with the family. The men and women who drove the animals and sold the cargo from land to land.
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Julia.
I was born and raised at the Arena Felix Inn, that property of private baths, dining rooms, gardens, rented shops and taverns, which stood only a block from the amphitheater at Pompeii. It was a focus for visitors and locals alike. Good bath, good food, a good place to rest.
We had all sorts that came to eat and bathe and stay with us. Walk in the garden after dinner. Or before. Entertainers visited and pleased our guests with their singing, dancing, and acrobatics. Speakers recited poems and speeches. One of our dining rooms had a waterfall. Another sported a fish tank. All were painted. The main rooms and entrance were famous for their fresoes of the forum and its many personalities and people. Bakers, food sellers, lawyers, women.
Beyond the guest areas, we had our own domus, or family house. Our door stood at the end of the peristyle walk and collonade, just before the corner of the garden gates. Inside our front door, the family atrium opened to several smaller rooms. Grandfather’s tablinum featured a window looking onto the garden. Wooden shutters could stop the wind or rain in winter, or open to admit the frangrance of flowers and fruit trees.
Of course whenever there was a show at the arena, we would get more business at the Felix place. Travelers and local friends would crowd into our gardens after the gladiator fights and wild animal shows. True, many had just enough money to pay for a good bath, others a bit more than that. But they spent it and enjoyed it.
Then came the riot in the streets around the arena, that terrible year. People from different towns even killed each other fighting. Horrible. Rome banned gladiator shows in Pompeii for ten years. Business fell off something weak after that and the local towns didn’t want to come here as much. Not any more. Then, nasty stroke: the earthquakes began with some big ones. Hit our town really hard. Knocked down temples.
Nero gave us permission to reopen the amphitheater for games and fights. We bit our teeth and worked to recover. Rebuild our broken walls. We were doing better, fourteen years later, even with the little earthquakes still hanging around. Then, the mountain exploded and destroyed us all.
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Lydia.
The emperor Hadrian looked at me. His dinner servants were gone, now. He and the boyfriend Antinos, and I, were alone.
The middle-aged, strong emperor, smiled and said, “Thank you for taking the trouble to come to see me. My wife also will be delighted to see you tomorrow at her augusta ceremony.”
“You are most welcome, lord caesar.”
“My lady. I hope it is not hard on you to travel.”
“No, good sir, it is all right. I am still rather spry for my age and can take a journey or voyage without much pain.”
“Good. I trust the rooms here are clean, and satisfying.
“Yes, sire, they are. I… well… there is something.”
“Yes?”
“I noticed you left some books for me to read in the tablinum of my room.”
“Yes. You saw them. Good.”
“Yes. I did. I have.”
“You know what writings they are?”
“Yes, my lord emperor, they are books written by the Christians. And also, you gave me a Greek play, of Euripedes, the maenad play. It is a little older than the others.”
“And in a different, more accomplished style, no?”
“Yes, my lord. More literary.”
“My lady. You understand, I hope, the question I am asking you in showing you those books?”
“Yes. You want to know if the new preachers of Christ are a danger to the Roman peace.”
“You are correct, Ma’am. There is argument among thoughtful people. They all say, however, that you are as quick as your father was.”
“They?”
“My advisors.”
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