The spectators all wear white, the same color
cloaking their head in cloth.
A gladiator,
calm and leather clad,
casually feeds something tasteless
to a curious,
sniffing
lion
whose appetite
seems never satisfied.

Are the spectators on trial?
Is there a trial?

Someone in the audience shouts,
"When do the games begin?"

The spectators,
chatting away
like any patient crowd,
hear,
yet deliberately take little notice.

In an empty walkway
amid the noise,
the Hermit
squats by an already
ancient
sandstone wall.
He notices.

"The Emperor starts the games,"
he mutters to himself.

Underneath (where no one can look),
many felt that generations would pass
within these very walls,
and that somehow
the game was already afoot.
Why else were they there,
dressed in their simple yet holiday best?

Some wandered, some waited,
others held optimistic candles,
impatiently,
to music
they did not understand,
but hoped to like.