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Carrara faced, be-hatted, he strides out
Not strides so much as marches
He sets out in conquest
Each street a Roman triumph
Should we whisper into his ear
“Remember that out but a man.”?
Every salutation a word thrust
Sharp, sweet and delivered with good grace.
Smiles given with taut solemnity
His recipient both old and young
The world and its conventions
Mere irritations along his Appian Way.
Some stare, other laugh, all behold him.
Crisp, starched and impervious
Aquiline featured and marble cool
Clipped hair, clipped nails, clipped tones
A vocabulary without fear
Patrician bones allow no such weakness.
Plebeian voices call out his name
Those in power try to avoid his gaze
Each person a small oasis
He stoops and drinks in their humanity
His path strewn with curiosity
He emerges as if from a novel’s page.
A dying breed or resurrected?
Half man, half porphyry, all heart
He lives his motto with calm alacrity
Vitanda est improba siren desidia
Modernity, the barbarian at his gates
He walks on purposefully, no bringer of circuses.
Vitanda est improba siren desidia
(That shameful siren, sloth, is ever to be avoided.)
Horace (65-8BC) Satires II
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