Scripted Years Poem by Buxton Shippy

Stones tell us what happened
All those blistered years;
The mocking, the killing, the stench.
How many Caesars cheered?
Mortar tell lives of children sealed
Betwixt the fires and iron spears.

Antiquity, I can hear you wailing
Riding on winds of history
There were washings in the baths
But the killings are a smear.

Some pillars still free-standing
On witnesses of uncaring;
Dusts still rising, on scripted years.