"The Same Moon Above Us", by Gerald Stern

In Gerald Stern's "The Same Moon Above Us", the unfortunate plight of a homeless man living in NYC is compared to the despair of Ovid, one of Rome's most prolific poets during the decades immediately preceding and following the death of Christ. In 9 A.D., Augustus Caesar sent him into exile for unknown reasons to live in a primitive town called Tomis on the Black Sea. For seven years, Ovid wrote poems of lamentation and importunate letters to the authoritarian emperor asking for forgiveness, hoping that he could return to Rome and bring an end to his emotionally taxing deracination. Unfortunately for Ovid, his letters went unanswered and he suffered in loneliness and despair until his death in 17 A.D.…