the music of ancient Greece
or Rome did not come down
to us
but this morning
I read Virgil’s Eclogues
struck
by the prophecy of a new era
“a great new cycle of centuries
begins. Justice returns to Earth…
the golden age returns,” he wrote
of his millennium, describing
the birth of the infant god, “come down
from heaven.” Jesus was 19
when Virgil died at 89….
will the Golden Age never come?
same faces
thrown up each generation
same races, emotions and struggles
all those centuries, those countries!
languages, songs, discontents!
they return
here in San Francisco
as I sit in the Trieste
-recitative of years!
O Paradiso! sings the jukebox
as Virgil and Verdi combine
in this life
to produce the only Golden Age
there’ll be

The regretful typo has been corrected. Thank you for your great photos of North Beach poets!
I took the photo of Harold Norse you have posted.
My name is spelled incorrectly my name is Ira Nowinski