Shift
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.
