Sulis Minerva (a poem)

Sulis Minerva

These days she looks you squarely in the eyes,
through blind bronze eyelids in a broad bronze face,
crowned with the curled corona of her hair;
with well-fed cheeks and solid, meaty jowl;
her nose impressive, and considerable.
She might look rather more at home somewhere
Italian than under British skies.
(The emperors seem likewise out of place,
surveying the Great Bath in carved disguise.)

In ancient times, her lobster-pink chief-priest,
fresh from the calidarium parboiled,
concealed her in the cella from the crowd
which queued as sacrificial blood was shed,
and slaves brought coal to keep the altar fed.
The pilgrims’ prayers were fervent, long and loud,
that barren wives be cured; that flocks increased;
that all who wished them evil might be foiled;
and so on, till a blade silenced the beast.

At modest charge, a haruspex would read
the future, searching through the guts of sheep,
interpreting a liver’s shade and smell.
Libations might be poured to please the gods,
to seal the deal with Sulis, beat the odds
and have things for the family turn out well,
‘secure in bed, at board, with bread and breed.’
This ritual was the only way to keep
life liveable: so said their hopeful Creed.

And Mother Sulis could be vengeful too,
and many suppliants requested there,
on leaden tablets dropped into the spring,
that she might read their curses, settle scores,
and act for those too poor to invoke the laws.
‘Please seek and find whoever took my ring,
my cloak (filched while I bathed), six coins, one shoe,
a sack of barley, and my new ploughshare.
Then maim or end them. All these words are true.’

A hungry crowd still gathers, but today
they’re on the tourist trail, a summer treat;
and Sulis, lost for centuries but found
in seventeen-twenty-seven when drains were laid,
rules from her plinth, denies requests for aid;
looks on as lines of visitors abound.
They take their selfies, hear the guides convey
Bath’s Tale; then, steeped in history, and replete
with culture, they’re refuelled, and on their way.