Herculaneum

Poem about the other victim of Vesuvius

Herculaneum

Kathleen McNamara



The ghost town twin of Pompeii
sleeping all these years below Napoli
history and warnings buried
the future waiting to be told

From our vantage point of time
your lives eerily similar to our own
ancient homes, villas and shops
sadly, miraculously preserved

Vesuvio broods silently
Napoli slowly mounting her flanks
the calm they mistake at their peril
the question: not if but when

“It won’t happen to us!”
“We will be ready for it.”
Such arrogance!
the Fates are within earshot

The bleached bones are still there
the watchers in the boathouse
marking the place they died
waiting for help that never came

The future
it is all there
writ large in the stones and the bones
what is it we can not see?