Ode to Rome

I did not want to leave you

O you goddess of antiquity

Adorned with Raphael, Michelangelo and Bernini

Adored by poets and artists like Fellini

You stretch majestically and free

Next to your old lover, the Tiber

The doves flew over the wedding cake

The woman at the restaurant locked up in her own cage

The rain at the advent of evening is a million soft kisses

I drank so much of your red wine without being drunk

The balconies frame the sky all blue all pretty

The shining paving stones that sandals have polished

The fresh and pure water flowed into the fountains

Stolen by an aqueduct from faraway sources

The priests and the nuns for whom you are the reliquary

Crown you with their faith, they are of all races

You can see in the faces of the children the heroic pride

Like your statues covered with a stoic beauty

Those statues are white shadows of a mausoleum

And the shadows to come photograph the Colosseum

At every corner they hawk their bric-a-brac

Sold to tourists who run around pell-mell

Piazza Navona, you call me, you call me

I still hear you despite the eternal crowd

The city of Rome perfumes the night

For the heroes of antiquity and of today

I was comfortable with you

I felt as if I was at home

Your pizza your gelato your wine your pasta

All of it made me want to return quickly

Hold me one last time, treasured city

For my future lies in your past