Hadrian's Door

 

This photo of a colossal door built by Emperor Hadrian at the Pantheon reminded me of Hadrian's never-ending passion for his dead boyfriend Antinous. So I wrote this new poem about meeting Hadrian's ghost at that giant door.

HADRIAN’S DOOR

by Brett Rutherford

“The oldest door still in use in Rome, Pantheon. Cast in bronze for emperor Hadrian's rebuilding, they date from about 115 AD. Each door is solid bronze seven and a half feet wide & twenty-five feet high, yet so well balanced they can be pushed or pulled open easily by one person.” -- History Addicts

At the Pantheon’s

colossal door,

Hadrian’s ghost pushes.

The shade of Antinous

pulls. A child could move

the hinges, bronze on bronze,

yet ghosts fail even

to raise a single quill

from a single fallen dove.

Here in the Pantheon,

doomed love

of Emperor for favorite

raises no sweat

on a statue’s brow,

just as no creak

of hinge, no slit

of dark to light admits

a passage between

the immortal beloved

and the grieving lover.

What passed through here

at Empire’s height?

Gods of marble, plunder

from barbarian cities,

high banners waving,

the tented float

bearing a captive queen,

triumphs brought in

on the backs of elephants?

Now the world’s largest door

swings in, swings out

for the merest tourist,

one line of force here,

one movement there,

a victory of vectors.

I summon you,

great Caesar’s ghost:

lean your tired arm

upon my shoulder.

Pass through with me—

I push — it yields —

ajar it is,

just wide enough

for the two of us.

Who would not wait

two thousand years

for a passage through

to the azure gaze

of Antinous – Oh!

See him there,
among the crowd:

that silhouette!

None other!