Musing on Museums

Where did the Ashmolean get its haul?

Powhatan’s Mantle – there’s one to recall:

a buffalo hide, lustrous with roanoke,

‘gifted’ to John Tradescant, but somehow

passed on to Ashmole through deed of escrow.

John’s widow sued, but was later found choked

in her back garden pond. Which makes you think:

what if such treasures had stayed where they were?

The folk who made them are now on the brink

of wanting them back – thus causing a stir.

Beneath ionic fluted columns’ shade:

things explorers found, cadged or ‘came across’.

No, cancel that: let’s call a spade a spade –

the word is ‘plundered’, underneath the gloss.

Not by happenstance did they end up here,

at the heart of the old Imperium;

but towed and rowed by troops of Grenadiers

to exile in the British Museum.

Idols gaze down on appointed Trustees

with guttural sorrow of refugees.

Have they lost their marbles at Russell Square?

It’s claimed they were protected by Elgin,

from cannon wars inflicting wear and tear.

We’ve less excuse for bronzes of Benin,

in vengeance from their Edo sculptors, torn.

The Board might show some generosity,

with gracious chairing by… George Osborne.

Yes – the Chancellor of Austerity,

a bunch of ancient relics in his care.

Still, he is a Tory, so no change there.

The Pitt Rivers has a wooden statue

whose upturned finger is just the right height

to pick your nose. There’s plenty in situ,

but they’re giving stuff back, aptly contrite

for depriving its rightful ownership.

If you want to take the kids somewhere free,

(instead of screen time, a proper day trip!)

remember to add Natural Hist-or-ee.

They can ask the mammoth, “why the long face?”

and catch Dodo’s eye through his domed glass case.

Published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, 2024