Wandering amidst the American new, occasionally my mind will stray. Back to so much living history, where I can point out with child-like glee that the cardo and the decumanus still form the central arteries of Arles with a bumpy heart-beat boom.
These old Roman roads.
They cross the countryside, still full of the promise of going…
…even when their paving stones, covered in two-thousand years of moss and tears, have been pushed aside.
Simply reminders now…
…of the many that came before…
…slowly, so slowly…
…at a pace we only know with our breath.
These old Roman roads, joining empires of the mind and yet there are flowers, such bright poppies.
They too burn in bloom, saying follow me. Follow me. Home.
Yes. Old remnants of Roman roads remind us of empires.Imagination as red as the poppies leads our minds to new destinations.
New. Beyond the old glories, the old meanings.
It is always a fascinaiting experience to travel on a Roman route. You can feel an ancient atmosphere all around especially at sunset when the sun lenghtens the shadows and the landscape becomes sepia ad in old photos. ..
Aurelia, Domizia lead to France but remember " all the roads lead to Rome".
Hi Heather, I'm trying to send a comment but I don't know why I can't. Emiliatre
This is so lovely Heather and that first photo really does look like a Monet. It made me catch my breath. Hope all is well with you. Your comment made me wonder what you're up to.
So very interesting and beautiful.
Must be wonderful walking on these roads…thought you walk already in a new home?
These photographs are so very beautiful. I am surprised that those roads are still there.
What history, and how I love history. Thank you for this beautiful post/
yvonne
Heather I love this post because you combine poetic prose with beautiful photos 🙂
Sounds like the route is inching homewards…. The poppies in the field are lovely but they, with the barbed wire, are telling me that this June, 100 years ago, WW1 began. For some of our boys/men, there was no going home.
Hello Heather:
"Joining the empires of the mind". What a wonderful evocation of the past which, of course, becomes the present when one finds oneself travelling a road which has, in one way or another, been traversed for centuries. Like you, we love these kinds of connections.