This poem by Meditations On Permafrost not only makes new for us an event from our culture’s history but brings it alive in all its terror for our generation as we sit so smugly complacent and complicit in our living rooms. What struck me here is the inter generational wound that festers and grows in the hearts of the Romans remembering Cannae. It propels them forward reinforced by the oratory of consuls and senators onward to commit one of the greatest war crimes ever recorded, the destruction of Carthage and the salting of its fields. I fear that a fleet of galleys could one day be sent from the shores of Hormuz or Gaza or some other place to New York or Washington with holds full of swords and salt, and hearts full of memories of rubble, of destruction rained down on them once from the skies, and of their homeland once soaked in their children’s and their children’s children’s blood. As you can see, this poem is deeply resonant, full of associations. A poem that must be read.