The Sabine Farm

You spoke of Horace on his Sabine farm,

his lime-deep valley, hyacinth in bloom,

with holm oak forests shuffling in the breeze.

He loved the spring, the clover-laden grass

his herds would feed on, drizzle-sweetened hills.

He lived, well free of Rome, as if the world

were leafy and reposed, the weekly gossip

flowing from the courts Augustus kept:

a gabbling stream of anecdote, opinion,

downright lies. Through confident, warm years,

with kingly patrons tending to his needs,

he dug the furrows of his perfect odes.

I know a few of us would surely prize

that farm: soft fontanel of private earth

in which to plow the furrows of our verse,

to separate the tangled roots of speech,

possess the ground, the poet’s measured tongue.

A few of us would love that greening world

with boundaries to walk and contemplate:

the pastures of desire, unweeded, blown

by riffles of blue wind; unforded brooks

of memory and dream; the icy cliffs

where waterfalls of purpose pour their vowels

through steady air, a music we could learn.

My friend, we follow in the Roman colter’s

wake in our own ways, not really farmers,

but poachers on the farm Maecenas granted.

Now weekly gossip flows along the wires

from Boston to Vermont; the capital’s

alive, but Caesars in their private jets

want nothing of us now. The mailman comes

with letters to aggrieve us, forms to fill.

I pay my debts, as you do, with a shrug

and turn to cultivate the ground, protected

by the barbed-wire fencing of our prose.

Unpatronized, we groom this inward land.