Pax Romana, 66.6 AD and More

by Kirby Olson (September 2018)

Fire of Rome, Hubert Robert, 1771

 

that faced the world at the time of

General Westmoreland

Spartanburg SC Herald-Journal, A1,

December 24, 1966

 

Children brought out for the fun

guests of Nero

paraded before senators

 

Lions released

 

The Word is a dove

Children kneel before the dark Lord

The crowd licks its lips

The hooves of horses can be heard

 

A square of swords

 

collides with the Iceni

 

As centurions far north attack a village

the pillages increase

Snow falls (as carrion circle above)

 

New children are collected for the Pax Romana,

Rome burned in 64 AD.

Nero committed suicide in 68 AD.

Two Men Talking, L.S. Lowry, 1941

Infinity

 

After church, I met the former mayor on the bridge.

I asked him about trapezoids, zero,

and the relative sizes of infinity.

Beneath the green arch was the brown roiling river.

He talked of the smallest number greater than zero.

 

The mathematician in his wool cap, wool sweater,

retired, his head tilted back, the flattened rivets

around us holding the span together, the river

must go somewhere. It starts up in Stamford, and winds

to the sea, “a twisted access path,” to infinity.

 

 

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