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Rome's Protestant Cemetery is a peaceful oasis of green next door to the Pyramid of Caius Cestius. More properly known as the Cimitero Acattolico, or non-Catholic cemetery, this lovely spot houses the graves of Keats and Shelley. Roger ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anny Ballardini" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2008 1:16 PM Subject: Re: "In Rome" >I have a problem with : Accatolica, what is it? > > On Jan 29, 2008 7:15 PM, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> In Rome >> >> >> The caretaker of the Military Cemetery >> across the Via Zabaglia >> from the Accatolica, where Keats, Shelley, >> Gramsci, etc. are buried, >> can tell you interesting stories >> if you buy him a few drinks >> after his shift, or on a Sunday >> when the heat is great and the traffic slightly subdued. >> He says his charges have their moods. >> Normally satisfied >> with their well-watered lawn, the neat ranks of their graves, >> the shade of the concrete hand with its broken sword, >> they are uneasy when visited; >> collectively upset by ancient wives, >> unfamiliar sons and daughters, unknown grandkids. >> It isn't that they're unfeeling, but their ideas >> of comfort, presence, peace are not those >> of the living. Their perceptions >> are, we would say, blurred. The touring >> schoolchildren who occasionally come >> do not appear to them as bored for life, >> slaves of themselves, but as polite, >> lovely, attentive archetypes >> who nonetheless hear nothing and feel >> no ghostly caress. No more than a tree, >> the caretaker says, do his friends >> regard themselves as rooted and motionless; >> and although these particular dead >> are male, they see action, >> rather as women do, as someone coming >> to them. Perhaps the Gestapo officer >> who shot so many of them, prisoners, >> in the head. And perhaps he does come >> from wherever he lies to the north, >> reluctantly, in horror >> of their illogical welcome, their forgetfulness >> his torment. But they are haunted by the living, >> as if by incipient earthquake; like the cats, >> their familiars. He seems reluctant to say more, >> the caretaker, and you ask him >> if it's only the military dead >> who stir thus. And he says >> he has heard similar reports >> from the staff across the street, where poets lie. >> > > > > -- > Anny Ballardini > http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/ > http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome > http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html > I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing > star! > > -- > This email has been verified as Virus free. > Virus Protection and more available at http://www.plus.net