Robin Skelton

White cycladic figures honour
shelves of glass, museum-trapped
anaconic faces shaping
stillness progress threw away
craving colour, noise, discarding
simple gestures, gentle words.
Now, outside the huge museum,
traffic rumbles, ashes fall,
posters shriek of death and passion,
garish features glossed with paint,
yet the faceless shining figures
poised behind the polished glass
radiate a stronger passion
unified by time and space
praising earth and sky and ocean,
folding flame in cradling arms,
nameless, knowing every human
name and need and sharing all.