A home I didn’t know I had

Rome.

You can’t get it through Nova, or PBS, or Gladiators or that big coffee table book in your aunt’s living room.  No picture frame can hold it.  It is like the Grand Canyon in that you have go there.

So, we’re on a sidewalk with a railing.  Over the edge and down is a grassy area with chunks of marble. From there a ladder drops down to another grassy area with more worked stone.  Beyond is a scaffold that drops yet again, this time to no grass, just dirt littered with fragments.  Another ladder down to a level that cannot be seen from our side walk.  On the second level a group of people are meeting, men and women in a variety of clothing of many ages and nationalities.  They are in intense discussion.  Then one raises his voice and points to the nearest fragment of a cornice.  A woman loudly answers, gesturing and pointing down the scaffold.  All start to wave arms and shout.  Then one starts to weep, and another.  Sobbing, the two antagonists lean on each other and wail.  Around them the group dissolves in disarray, some sitting, some standing but all crying in frustration and grief.

“What is going on?” I ask a passing Roman.

“Oh,” he says, “Those are the archeologists.”