PEOPLE WATCHING
AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM
I love the British Museum. It's one of those places where I can wander and, hopefully when it's not too busy!, find somewhere to sit. More than "sit", I settle and find the passage of visitors fascinating.....
- Ooo, good boots! Good trousers, too! ¾ khaki. Scan upwards, good outfit generally …confident stride
- A beard neatly trimmed, a scarf neatly knotted, very polished boots. No mud here
- White shoes. How can anyone keep shoes that clean on a city street?
- White trousers now! That’s even worse! I get grubby just standing still
- Fast. Purposeful. Staff?
What stops people?
Shiny?
Maps?
More shiny?
Swords?
Bones, the promise of bodies?
Other people?
- A friend, a hug, greetings
- Take a call, slow down to speak, lose the sense of where you are, where everyone else is, become a wandering traffic hazard.
I love to walk these halls barefoot.
Cool stone, warm corners, the edge of a step
Bare, my feet measure their steps more carefully, feet folding, rolling onto the floor.
For me, today, what stops me is faces.
Greek, Roman, Cypriot, Assyrian faces.
A gathering of Caesars.
Monumental Egyptian pharaohs
And I haven’t even reached those elegant Mayan reliefs.
The carving of beards.
Tight, sheep-fleece curls that would be the envy of that hipster trim from earlier.
Cauldrons stop me, too.
Cauldrons remembering the warmth of flame and halls full of smoke and laughter,
The slow, turning stew of their abundance,
A royal bellyful of largesse.
Saunter, pause, too cool to give anything away, any enthusiasm
Me, I’m matching profiles: flesh into stone
A baby stares, smiles, a small hand does that finger-wiggling wave at an ancient king to no response that I can see but the child still chuckles a gurgling laugh. Do you hear a private voice? Catch a twinkle in a stone eye?
Scan the room. Head down, keep moving
A long skirt drifting by.
Students talking, excited, watching phones, watching screens, each other.
O, you look bored.
Earnest. Read the guide, find the case, tick the mental checklist of treasures.
Earnest, animated conversation…but could you move? You’re stood standing there talking about someone who has no bearing on the case you are blocking. Please move! Hadrian is waiting!
White shoes and more white shoes.
A cluster of people, generations strung as beads on a family necklace, stop and talk, all talk, look, point, they know these towns, those landscapes. Larnaka
O, you’ve come round again.
A head, a torso (was there ever more?)
Dug from some temple to a forgotten god.
Named Apollo or Reshef but probably not by this gentleman, here
Idalion was a city poised between Greek and Phoenician and Persian worlds.
But their story, their own story is not spoken.
No Greek archive here to help,
Nor Phoenician scroll to tell the story of Idalion’s temples.
He simply rests here on his plinth, watching the doorway, and
Few people ignore him,
This Idalion man, temple worshipper, a priest, perhaps, or even a king…
A dignified walk, a silken wrap trails, an involuntary train. Retrieved with a smile by a friend.
Elegant in black and lace, a goth glides past, silent, pale and painted in hefty boots
In a sudden surprise I match a profile: this visitor, this young man, looking up, and Idalion, gazing down? Do you know you share a face?
…and people pause, comment, gaze.
Would you leave an offering before those stone eyes?
Or touch a stone from his temple, polished smooth over the years, hand after hand, a tap, a stroke, a caress to connect now with then, to acknowledge the dignity in those cold eyes, the beauty of that stone face.
He calls for some homage, some acknowledgement, some connection
And my hand aches to fill my palm with that sweep of folded cloth
The precise edge of that laurel crown,
Still sharp and pointed after 2000 years
The moment that lasts is the pair of profiles: warm flesh and ancient stone. Face to face, not quite reflections and both so handsome…..
