We cannot go there now:
the Pont-du-Gard at Nimes,
from the first century B.C.
which carried water thirty miles
and was a feat of engineering
unsurpassed in Roman Gaul,
for bathing was important then.
The baths, a gift from Kaiser himself
to war-weary soldiery,
were where a man could sheath his sword
and tell his tales of Alexandria.

This was Nemausus, a country for old men, a real city.
Forum, basilica, Apollonian temple,
curia, theatre, circus
and monumental galleries galore.
Wealth without question,
cleanliness and no tattered coats
for those who rightly ruled the world.

A worker on that aquaduct,
though thought of as a slave,
would, however, have lived quite well,
rewarded for good industry
with bonuses and perquisites
to rectify the stubborn oaf,
and make a worthy man of him.
No need for cleansing with holy fire.
What did the Romans do for him?
They taught him how to build.

Do you wonder then,
why we cannot go there now?
There is no Theme Park tycoon,
lolling by his turnstiles, watching coffers filling,
there where the Gardon ripples by
beneath arches older than legends,
older than religions,
older than our folklore or the Sermon on the Mount.

Getting there, one would approach
the great Augustus Gate
along an avenue of monuments,
freshly carved, pristine.
Not a hint of birdshit, moss or grime.
Not a single crack in any plaster finger.
(If at all, we know it only as a Dream Corridor.)
Vines and bowers too, and girls, clean girls, good girls.
The best bonus for a worthy man.

We cannot go there. For us,
lovewords rise from an inner bog,
creep along a sewer and are spewed.
But once, truly, such words were pure.
They moved on dustless roads,
uncut by wheels of laden chariots.

In nought but nakedness is he regaled.
His knees and hands are soldierly and rough.
The soap-ball that he holds from Lyon hailed:
the recognised motif is proof enough.

This soldier drinks it in without a tear
where boys might wince at water hot as this
or swoon upon the clouding vapour here
and drown, though barely old enough to kiss.

A smiling nod and one of many maids
puts off her gown, steps in up to her thighs
and, with a sweet obsequiousness, wades,
sinks down and rises moistly for his eyes.

His scar-clad chest to her seems like a map,
an inventory of how a man may bleed.
The oily lather spreads down to his lap
and her soft Gaulish hands raise Rome indeed.

Of trade ensuing, she is well aware,
though this transaction has no need of pay:
the Emperor himself has taken care
that playful girls will always want to play.

So, playfully, she offers oral token,
softly in her sweet, exotic tongue:
the most sweet tongue her sex has ever spoken
with dulcet lips since all the world was young.

Imagine the complexions then.
The skin of a well-bred girl
contained not one industrial impurity,
and the thought of breeding noble men
gave her not one prejudice against herself.
Oh, think of it!

But I don't think we can go there.
We’re not builders, makers nor even fishers of men.

But I do know this. Sweep away a millennium
and another
and there sits Freddus Bloggus, simple soldier,
promoted to Centurion for his meed
at the end of the Egypt wars,
browbound in laurel and packed off to Nemausus;
sitting in water which has traveled thirty miles
to cushion him, across an aquaduct
supervised by stout guards at regimented intervals
and over the heating coals.
There he sits,
buttocks rolling on the warm mosaic tiling,
careless as to the rough beast looming:
Anno Domini, its hour not yet come.