O Rome, you are a heartless lover

of the forgotten and the lost.
We stood one autumn afternoon
beneath brooding Giordano Bruno
in bustling Campo di Fiori square
reciting the poem by Milosz.
No one noticed, no one cared,
no more than they did when Bruno burned.
The Church was harsh, the Church was stern,
never a forgiving mother,
this her errant child’s doom.
The poet says what we already know—
the crowds will eat and drink their wine
while a saint aflame dies nearby,
the afternoon so blue and fine.