Colossae

COLOSSAE

Once, kings passed through your gates.

You were rich, powerful,
heavy with people,
merchants, animals, voices,
goods arriving from distant lands
and leaving again beneath other names.

Your looms gave the world
colossinus,
wool dyed such a deep and lasting red
that your city lived within its colour.

People knew your cloth.
They knew your wealth.
They knew where you stood.

Then the earth moved.

Walls fell.
Temples broke.
Streets disappeared beneath themselves.

The rain entered your ruins.
The wind wore down what remained.
Human hands carried away your stones
and built other lives with them.

The centuries finished what the earthquakes began.

Paul wrote to your people,
warning them against beliefs
that threatened the new faith.

The letter survived.

The people did not.
The houses did not.
The markets, workshops and voices did not.

Of all your achievements,
the world remembers a heresy.
Of all your wealth,
it preserved a warning.

For centuries,
you were considered too insignificant
even to uncover.

Colossae,
once crowded,
once internationally known,
once dressed in dark red,
became a blank and silent mound.

The city vanished.

The accusation survived.

Rose Vidovix, Denizli 16/09/2026

I live near Colossae, and I am fascinated by how almost nothing of this once important city has survived.

The day before yesterday, I visited the site and stepped into a stream that once supplied water to the city. While collecting rubbish along its banks, one of my hobbies, I felt the words of a poem beginning to form in my mind.

I came home and started writing about Colossae.