VERONA'S AMPHITHEATRE: A NEW POEM...

Verona’s Arena: The Ala

A tall remnant, precarious,

Rose scantily into a bland sky,

Incongruous above hurrying promenaders

Beneath umbrellas and plastic ponchos huddled,

Streaming across the Piazza Brà:

An arena, weathered, yet stubborn and wry,

A shell, a shard of tooth

In an ancient mummified skull,

Or a bombed Ypres church during the Great War,

Or a symbol, an icon to the rapacious,

Or a reminder of harsh Roman rule,

Or the fragility of a modern world, tense and befuddled…

Pete Ray

June 2017

Looking up from a table in the Piazza Brà, Verona at a remaining section, The Ala, of the upper reaches of an ancient Roman amphitheatre, as a dark cloud loomed overhead…