Consider silphium, extinguished flower,Kin to the wild carrot, Queen Anne’s lace,Fennel and dill, and rooted now no placeOn earth, that once was worth an empress’ dower,A Caesar’s ransom. Silphium was powerStored in Rome’s coffers, stamped upon the faceOf silver tetradrachms, a thing to baseThe wealth of nations on. Now past its hour,Stamped out, its numbers harvested to zero,What properties, what cures were in an ounceAre lost to us—mere footnote to the pleasureOut of a poem—“kisses without measure.”The last stalk ever found, Pliny recounts,Presented as a rarity to Nero.
Extinction, Laserpicium
A.E. Stallings
Quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenaelasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis—Catullus 7
Feature Date
- August 16, 2020
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Copyright © 2019 by A.E. Stallings
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
A. E. Stallings is an American poet who lives in Greece. Her most recent poetry collection is Like, from FSG. Her recent verse translations are Hesiod’s Works and Days with Penguin Classics, and the Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice, with Paul Dry Books. A Selected poems is forthcoming with FSG.
Issue 28
North Carolina
Department of Creative Writing, University of North Carolina Wilmington
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