Today’s poem and photos are from two different countries but they share that hollow cavernous feeling which Patrick knows so well.
The photos were taken last August in Sutri north of Rome where they have a lovely Roman amphitheatre that was dug into the tufa rock between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD and rediscovered in the 19th century. At this time it was fully brown but I have seen some photos of it when it’s lush and green.
No need of captions today, feel free to entertain own cavernous thoughts as we stroll.
As for the poem, it really happened this way a few days ago. And after that I went to uncle’s garden and wrote it on my laptop while mosquitos were having a feast.
Cavernous I’m walking bestia in the first hood of my life, the one where nothing ever happened. Not yet. That cavernous hollow feeling that needs filling. I see blocks of flats, the same as they ever were, and wish to ring those same bells: Jeras, Bohorič, Uranič. Let’s hang out. I don’t even look to see if the names are still there. Something tells me they aren’t. It’s been nearly forty years. Then I pass the house of my first love who would have preferred not being told about being it. There is a man taking out the trash. I spy from afar. Same walk. Check. Same hair. Check. Same build. Check. Then I see how slow he is. Then I see how bald he is getting. I don’t get to the build. No need. When he is done and returns to the house hobbling I realise: There is no way I could tell him apart from his father even if the man turns around and smiles his cavernous smile.
In response to Patrick Jennings’ Pic and a Word Challenge #282: Cavern
This day in my blogging history
An Embarrassment of Riches 
It makes you want to get lost is these tunnels.
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They are quite short, Bojana. No chance to get lost in them. For a kid it would be quite adventurous though. Thank you!
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Metaphorically speaking, each tunnel is long enough.
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Great images, and poem today!
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Thank you, Deborah. 🙂 I’m glad you like the poem too. Sometimes they rolled out in a such a way that I’m surprised too.
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I love poetry, but have never been able to write it myself and nothing ever rolls off my tongue or pen this good!
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😀 Thank you! Keep it rolling!
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I love poems which send me on tangential paths of discovery.
<smile> We try to go back to what was, only to find even our nostalgia has moved on.
And, yes, if we carry an expectation that time has stood still, except for all the corrections which might make the past better, then a cavernous hollow is all that we are likely to find.
But if we go back expecting the hollow, then we can fill it with our presence, and leave the memories where they lay, to be enjoyed the way we enjoy the remains of colosseums abandoned to history.
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Ahh, brilliant, Patrick. Thank you for this musing. Quite right. Filling things with our presence, and our present, tends to be beneficial. Nostalgia indeed moves on and we better keep abreast. The wish to have a better past must go.
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