Ernest Hilbert: Dusk in the Ruins

And we finish our first week at Literary Magnet with another poem from the excellent and entertaining Ernest Hilbert. Look soon for our review of his forthcoming book, All of You on the Good Earth. 

Dusk in the Ruins

Necropolis, Vulci

I arrive, one more uninvited guest.

A June storm coasts down the horizon

Of the volcanic plateau. I trekked hours

To appear before tombs like an earnest

Pilgrim of some kind. I have come alone.

Cumulonimbus broadens above; flowers

Nod in rising wind. A single white horse

Grazes down below, slowly consumed

By shadow that pours into the valley.

Whole histories, spread and cooled in their course,

Load this darkened air—Etruscans doomed,

Then Romans, these stones their long finale.

I am summered and slow in withered light;

My flinted veins, my parched fields, grind and ignite.

Originally appeared in Cimarron Review.