Thoughts in the Roman Baths

In which I sat down by the green water in the Roman Baths and wrote a poem . . .

In the city of Aqua Sulis, presided over
by Minerva of the Waters, in a corner,
carved into stone predating the Roman city,
are three mysterious figures, a triple deity,
the goddess of the Celts, whose names we no longer
remember. But what the archaeologists tell us
is that she was worshiped, or rather they (being triple),
throughout the Celtic lands from time immemorial,
until the Roman goddess strode in, Minerva,
as arrogant, in her armor, as any centurion,
and took the city for her own. Oh Minerva!
You are such a child beside these ancient figures,
as ancient as the Fates, who predate Zeus.
Perhaps they are the Fates themselves, who formed
the earth and set it floating on the waters
of Night, which bubble up in the blessed springs
in which we bathe ourselves, worshiping the goddess
Minerva Sulis, forgetting that they come
from her, originally, the triple goddess
whose names we have forgotten, yet who holds
our lives in her capable hands from our watery births
until our deaths, and to whose endless streams
we will return, slipping out of our bodies
and into her immensity like fish . . .

(The image is my photograph of the Celtic Triple Goddess at Aqua Sulis.)

This poem was originally published on my poetry blog, here: “Thoughts in the Roman Baths” by Theodora Goss