Standing on the dust we remember the distances,
the ways and pretences of empire,
the Canopo, the absent bodies
under the sun’s asymmetry.
Surrounded by silence and the scent of olives,
only dust, here, deserves its residence.
The hill’s flatness, the Tivoli landscape.
On the living pillars, still standing,
the aligned traces of an age.
More than enough centuries for a toast to death.