To An Unknown Roman Soldier
we are more than meets the eye
![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/d_642250b563292b35f27461a7.png,f_jpg,fl_progressive,q_auto,w_1024/65ad50cbc023f2001dca9d44.png)
When you heard
the oars cutting
the choppy waters of the channel,
did you know it would be the last time?
You would never return to sea,
to family, to where?
Aleppo, Cappadocia?
Did you want to go back?
When you came with Claudius
to the shores of Britannia
did the sound of your sandals
on the peat mossed ground,
marching to Eboracum, seep into
your soul, or did you
long for the hardscrabble earth
of a Levantine landscape?
I see you there,
dimly as that might be,
through the strands
of my DNA that tell more
than my fair skin and blue eyes
alone can whisper.
A string of letters and numbers
stretched across time and space.
A sequence of alleles that look the same
in me as in you.
I see you standing in the ranks,
shadowlike, shield in hand.
Whether dream, or memory,
or something in between,
I see you there
every time I look in the mirror
and faintly I hear you calling
in the timbre of my own voice.
About the Creator
Randy Baker
Poet, author, essayist.
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