Remembering the grapes

A big, good-looking lad,
his arms and shoulders shaped
by working the Umbrian soil
when he was young, now he thinks
of the vineyards and curses
the day he took up the sword
and the standard. Not that
it's any disgrace to uphold
the Pax Romana, but sometimes
he misses the smell of rich
damp soil in this parched land,
feels weary of an alien place
full of dark religions fermenting
like grain under the sun, the Zealots
and the priests all babbilng beardily,
their eyes bulging like barrel-bungs.
He sucks his finger thoughtfully
running his tongue over fresh ridges
where briars snagged his flesh.
Tomorrow he will offer a pair
of pure white doves to Jupiter
and ask to be posted back to Italy.
Who can feel at home in a land
where the sky grows dark in the eye
of a bright afternoon? He never wanted
the bloody execution detail;
the splinters were bad enough,
but the thorns crowned his discontent.
Leave them to it, he thinks,
and dreams of the burst of red grapes
in his mouth and the first draught
of the new vintage.

              grasshopper