"The Pitti on D-Day" from Nominative Gestures
	  			


Today we remember D-Day at 60 and Pompeii eternal,
BBC reports on Bush and Pope,
Politics swirl and distort all solemn moments,
Vesuvius erupts, saves Roman glass.
The Medici lived well,
Stood high above Firenze,
Looked as God and said,
	    "This is good."
Adding, like man,
	    "Mine, master of all I survey."
BBC reports on Israel and car bombs.
Firenze is filled with palaces and churches
Built on the backs of the poor:
Gilded, gaudy, extravagant, 
Brunelleschi's dome and the Pitti Palace.
	Did he stand, as we did,
	Near the top of the Pitti and admire
	Across the Arno his great dome?
		   Was he paid well?
		   With whose monies?
The Medici flourished here.
Many died that they could,
Many died freeing the world
From power, ego, country, charisma gone mad.
The Medici did much good;
Their wealth gave rise to art and science,
But much evil also.
Seeing Versailles and Pitti a few days apart
Explains revolution.
Following revolutions and wars,
How do we explain Mussolini and Hitler?
Following Washington, Paine, Jefferson,
D-Day and the fall of the Berlin wall,
How do we explain the Bush dynasty?
 
The image today-
	   Bush awarding the Pope our medal of freedom
	   While the Pope condemns our sadistic 
            treatment of prisoners.
Some new horror will come from this,
Surely some new revolution is at hand.
So we, as tourists, retreat to the Boboli Gardens 
       and the Pitti.

The gardens are enormous, peaceful now,
An extensive people's garden, where royalty 
no longer cavorts.
The Pitti now filled with museums
Where important men of Firenze
Stare back from the tombs of their portraits
And Roman glass speaks of a city
Preserved forever as it was
At happy hour one surprising afternoon.