Day Trip To A Market In Metapontum Poem by Alexander Hawkins

You might care about scandals in sandals,
About this temperate tunic weather
And these bouts of rapturous rhetoric;

You might have visions of long sandy walks,
Of Gaulish gypsy sellers in their stalls
Trying to flog some fine La Tène furs

Amidst a great thrall of market mayhem,
full of Latin shouts that fill your proud cup
That overflows and stains the marble floor,

The same shouts that fall silent across this
Same marble floor, this marble floor that you
Believe should echo brightly with these sounds;

In truth they were silent aeons ago,
Forgotten by people who have long since
Ceased thinking, as you have ceased thinking of them.