On the Oldest Preserved Fresco of Vesuvius

 

Even Virgil recalled

how they were adorned

with olive and vine

and, still like Vesuvius’ slopes

 

ending in Pompeii’s fascia flutes,

the bodies too were marble-hedged

against mournful cypresses

and blessed parasol pines.

 

Just as the question

which didn’t need to be asked

but always meant

both sank and sang

 

its over-again line:

“O dear lad, how many grapes

could you find on us

no one’s ever known?”

 

making kantharos and cantos

afloat as many and still all one—

as when Vesuvius and Mount Somma

had also been capped as one—

 

like all such pagan beauty

along with Bacco

and that agatho-daimonic snake

before the shock of their eruption.

In the Flags They Go to Sunbathe and Swim As if Dressed for a Devout Water Rite

 

“Let them go clothed
In the speech of symbols;
Let them echo them,
Not knowing what they do.”

Only poetry, at times,
Still attempts to pass
From the trivial
Into the other,

Swimming
Against the common current.

In late June,
Almost July,

Women and girls
Are encouraged
To bathe
Clothed
In the nation's flag—

Bright with stars,
And cheerful stripes of red
Upon white,

So that an emblem
Becomes flesh,

And the bodies
Of Lady Liberty
And Miss America
Trade
In unsheathed pride.

Indeed,
What better way
Than to wear a banner
As a bathing dress,

Thus revealing
America's hidden
Neptunian element,

By which that very flesh,
As though baptized,
Proclaims
A secret word:

That, deep down,
We have all become
Candid,
Unabashed,
Atlanteans.