No More Will be Baked Here

(Villa San Marco, Bay of Naples, 79 CE)

"...from Mount Vesuvius widespread fames and fires rising high blazed
forth in several places, their gleaming brightness accentuated by the darkness

of the night."

— PLINY THE YOUNGER, Complete Letters,
Book VI, Letter #16 (Oxford, 2006, 144-5)

Where sun ripens grapes to pearly purple,
white foam flirts with an aqua bay lined
by luxurious villas. Slaves serve wealthy
landowners with labor to provide
pears, lemons, vegetables, baked goods.

Above all stands a tall volcano, motionless.
One day it awakens. Heated smoke drawn
from the upwelling shrivels fruit, as
tremors agitate waves, aqueducts exude sulfur.
Sun eclipsed, wind still, air fraught.

A man, woman, two children, hurry in fright,
after star-pointed pebbles crush their roof, smother
courtyard millstones. No more will be baked here.
Uncounted hours of toil, backaches from harvests,
hopes of freedom from slavery -