The Roman Bowl
(“2,000-Year-Old Roman Bowl Discovered Intact in the Netherlands,” Nora McGreevy, Smithsonian.org, January 28th, 2022)
By Joanna Grant
October 15, 2022
October 15, 2022
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Before this place had its name, its coat of arms,
its mottoes, its borders, a history—it was here. The money for it gone on a whim, an expensive whim, a luxury, not on anything practical, like livestock or more seed to plant in the fallow field reclaimed at great pains from the sea. Not even a pair of stout leather boots or a thick woolen cloak to keep out the wet, the rain, the killing frost, the snow. No, it all went on a piece of blue heaven, it seemed, or perhaps on a wave, tiny ripples and grooves drawn into the molten glass on its mold a reminder of breakers, beachcombers, terracotta and sea salt. Of Italy. Home. This earth has never been kind to beauty or those who risk it, but just this once, the very mud, the turf itself took this piece in, it held it close through all the burnings, the floods, the trenches, blitzkrieg and famine, until it finally felt safe enough to give it back to the careful hands, the little brushes, this palm-sized piece, this Roman bowl, the closest thing to heaven most of us will ever know. |
Joanna Grant has a Ph.D. in British and American literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with an emphasis on travel narratives of the Middle East. She has lived and worked in that region for several years in her capacity as a college instructor for University of Maryland Global Campus, including stints in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar. She has also taught in Kuwait and Japan.
Her books include her published dissertation, Modernism's Middle East: Journeys to Barbary (Palgrave Macmillan); My Far-Shooting Apollo (The Chapbook Journal); The House of Dust (All Nations Press/Bang Publications); and Adrift (Alien Buddha Press). Best of the Net, Pushcart, and Best New Poets nominee. Blurbs by Daisy Fried, Doc Sigerson, Aaron Poochigian, and Stephanie Burt.
Her books include her published dissertation, Modernism's Middle East: Journeys to Barbary (Palgrave Macmillan); My Far-Shooting Apollo (The Chapbook Journal); The House of Dust (All Nations Press/Bang Publications); and Adrift (Alien Buddha Press). Best of the Net, Pushcart, and Best New Poets nominee. Blurbs by Daisy Fried, Doc Sigerson, Aaron Poochigian, and Stephanie Burt.