The Colosseum from an off the beaten path vantage point in Rome, where we all want to feel beauty and find love.
Rather than just street views up close, some of the ruins can be viewed from greenery, captured like a stolen moment between lovers.
The sun breaking through the “windows” of the colosseum still inspires excitement in me after 20 years in Rome.
See how small we are in this world, and how the ancients wanted to remind us of that?
The view of more centuries of history mashed together from atop the crowds, with the ancient symbol of fecundity a pomegranate in bronze.
Arches built for faded triumphs, still gazed upon thousands of years later.
The verdant hills of the Palentine whisper of a pastoral Rome found normally on the winding road of the interminable Appian Way.
Angels were found in Classical Antiquity, and have guided me along my own travels in the Eternal City.
The marble of Roma seems the only thing built to last some days.
A Roman bride as bright as a white dove sent as some augur of hope amidst the ruins.
Love can not wait for time to take over and wreak havoc.
A Renaissance fountain and umbrella pines tucked away quietly from the crowds.
Water and moss glint in the sunlight and shadow.
The present is pulled between the past ashes and the future hopes.
When in Rome embrace love, life, and passion in the moment… bathe in warm sunshine before the sun crawls west and the moon rises in the east again, except for two days of the year.
The moment is now, the touch is palpable, the hum of machinery is drowned out by the flight and song of sparrows, the cypress and umbrella pines wave in the breeze, and the scent of wine and food beckons like a kiss from nearby.
Laugh in the face of death while you still can, make love in the dying of the light to make your embers burn deeper, richer, more wildly.
The gods have left their dice behind, we only have to roll them.
Remember what has been, recognize who you are, breathe it all in, and then move with the traffic to the next thing.
The vestiges must be broken from something solid and beautiful before we are all dust.
a love letter to rome 
Wonderful photos!
“Tell me ye stones and give me O glorious palaces answer.
Speak O ye streets but one word. Genius, art thou alive?
Yes, here within thy sanctified walls there’s a soul in each object,
ROMA eternal. For me, only, are all things yet mute.
Who will then tell me in whispers and where must I find just the window
Where one day she’ll be glimpsed: creature who’ll scorch me with love?
Can’t I divine yet the paths through which over and over
To her and from her I’ll go, squandering valuable time?
Visiting churches and palaces, all of the ruins and the pillars,
I, a responsible man, profit from making this trip.
With my business accomplished, ah, then shall only one temple,
AMOR’s temple alone, take the initiate in.
Rome, thou art a whole world, it is true, and yet without love this
World would not be the world, Rome would cease to be Rome…
Happily now on classical soil I feel inspiration.
Voices from present and past speak here evocatively.
Heeding ancient advice, I leaf through the works of the Ancients
With an assiduous hand. Daily the pleasure’s renewed.
Throughout the night, in a different way, I’m kept busy by Cupid—
If erudition is halved, rapture is doubled that way.
Do then I not become wise when I trace with my eye her sweet bosom’s
Form, and the line of her hips stroke with my hand? I acquire,
As I reflect and compare, my first understanding of marble,
See with an eye that feels, feel with a hand that sees.
While my beloved, I grant it, deprives me of moments of daylight,
She in the nighttime hours gives compensation in full.
And we do more than just kiss; we prosecute reasoned discussions
(Should she succumb to sleep, that gives me time for my thoughts).
In her embrace—it’s by no means unusual—I’ve composed poems
And the hexameter’s beat gently tapped out on her back,
Fingertips counting in time with the sweet rhythmic breath of her slumber.
Air from deep in her breast penetrates mine and there burns.
Cupid, while stirring the flame in our lamp, no doubt thinks of those days when
For the triumvirs he similar service performed…
How very happy I am here in Rome when I think of the bad days
Far back there in the north, wrapped in a grayish light.
Over my head there the heavens weighed down so dismal and gloomy;
Colorless, formless, that world round this exhausted man lay.
Seeking myself in myself, an unsatisfied spirit, I brooded,
Spying out pathways dark, lost in dreary reflection.
Here in an ather more clear now a luster encircles my forehead.
Phoebus the god evokes forms, clear are his colors by day.
Bright with the stars comes the evening, ringing with songs that are tender,
And the glow of the moon, brighter than northern sun.
What blessedness mortals may know! Am I now dreaming? Or welcomes
Jupiter, Father, as guest—me, to ambrosial halls?
See, I lie here extending my arms toward your knees. I am praying:
Hospitality’s god, Jupiter Xenius! Hear:
How I am come to this place I no longer can say—I was
Seized up by Hebe. ‘Twas she led to this sacred hill.
Did you command her a hero to seek and deliver before you ?
May be she erred. Then forgive. Let her mistake profit me!
Does not Fortuna, your daughter, when strewing her glorious presents,
After the manner of girls, yield to each passing whim?
You, O hospitable god, will by no means now banish a stranger
From your Olympian heights back to the base earth again.
“Poet, come to your senses!”—Forgive me, Jupiter, is not
Rome’s Capitoline Hill second Olympus to you?
Suffer me, Jupiter, here and let Hermes guide me at last then
Past Cestius’ Tomb gently to Orkus below…”