'Thus you remain with us, twisted plaster-cast,

Unending agony, terrible testimony

Of how much our proud seed matters to the gods.'

           Primo Levi – The Little Girl of Pompeii
 

 

Writing to Tacitus, Pliny describes

How his uncle, at first, sat back to watch

As Vesuvius wolfed into the sky

A 22 k cloud of burning ash and rocks.
'A most curious phenomenon; a great

pine – the trunk, the spreading canopy.'

Then he went too close. Get out or sit tight?

He lay down to dictate the joint obituary.
 
*
 
There's a certain pine that to give up its seed

Must wait first for the forest to burn. A lone

Fire-helicopter bellies water away to the trees.
This plaster cast; it could be anyone.

Hands over his face, knees drawn up to his chest;

It looks like he just sat down here and wept.