A Poem Inspired By The Roman Baths

They stunned me with the force

of a shifting age. Like asteroids,

farming, the internet. Mother goddesses,

a sacred three in the hot displays at the

Roman Baths. To my shame, I gasped.

I almost cried, while tourists hustled

for selfies with the Gorgon’s Head and

the Façade of the Four Seasons. I was

roped to the spot by an invisible line to

the votive relief in the glass. Carved

grey schist – hard yet brittle – the workings

of the sculptor still visible and Celtic, here

before the Romans. Three mother goddesses

with naked breasts, their pleated skirts, the tilt

of movement in their smooth round heads.

Linked together arm in arm – more sisters

than mothers.

Driving home I caught sight of the familiar

line at a high point on the horizon –

beech trees planted in perfect definition

with the light behind them. The escarpment

from an era when mountains formed

and the forests became coal and carboniferous

rock – or schist. How like the rings of trees

were the heads of the mother goddesses.

How like the curvature of the earth.

The gravity of our home place holding us here.

They and I at different ends of this vanishing

human season. Arms linked, heads tilted in

whispers and – haven’t we danced.