(Neues Museum, Berlin)
Who are you —
gazing with lidded indifference
from your forest-green dome (the start
of a smile lightly twitching
red lips), towards Helios a half
mile away?
Mere plaster
on limestone, plastered with eons’
projections: dug from mud at
Amarna, looted from
Egypt
an emblem
of greed, and wonder:
mother of millions of memes.
Your one full eye seems a skeptic’s,
with reason. Bundled in lies to a Kaiser,
locked in place by a Fuhrer,
captive and
hostage, shipped
off to salt mines, all your homes
levelled, you’ve wandered
our refugee roads.
Across three
millennia
from emerald
reeds and jade water
with a whisper of incense
your numinous calm replies:
who are we?
