Our Rome

Love makes a world of
perceptions. I saw you see
Rome for the first time

when I saw Rome through
your eyes. That’s how love works. Your
Eternal City

walled in honey light
is mine. Fountain to fountain
your Rome waters mine.

Author: Tom D'Evelyn

Tom D'Evelyn is a private editor and writing tutor in Cranston RI and, thanks to the web, across the US and in the UK. He can be reached at tom.develyn@comcast.net. D'Evelyn has a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley. Before retiring he held positions at The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard University Press, Boston University and Brown University. He ran a literary agency for ten years, publishing books by Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, among others. Before moving to Portland OR he was managing editor at Single Island Press, Portsmouth NH. He blogs at http://tdevelyn.com and other sites.

3 thoughts on “Our Rome”

  1. The images of golden light and of water create impressions of translucence. As the reader goes through the poem, she starts to experience the tensions of togetherness and distance. We feel the poignancy of the poet’s viewpoint as we find ‘my’ and ‘your’ Rome shared, interdependent and interpenetrating, and yet separate. And perhaps this pognancy leads us to reflect on every person’s finitude and community.

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    1. Yes and there’s the idea of origins and firstness, and so immanent otherness, if you will. Perception in this phenomenological sense reverses subject/object to triangles of participation. Why all the science? These poems are weighted with a grief that would otherwise render me mute.

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      1. Yes. The reversal of teh subject-object relationship is extremely perceptive and thought-provoking. I don’t think you were apologising – except maybe in the sense of apoologia! – but there’s no need to apologise for all the phenomenology. And I am very glad you hav e not been left mute.

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