Prince Albert with his pier-side view
and Hugo up on Candie’s rock
must tremble, if a stone statue
can tremble when it gets a shock
as, one by one, monuments fall.
If one’s pulled down, what next, them all?
It must be worrying to be
a statue, innocent or not:
the subject of such scrutiny,
regarded by some as a blot
to be reviled, to have to move
because campaigners disapprove.
Things change, we know that, nonetheless,
while change is good, some is less so.
Should we not focus on progress,
move on from wrongs of long ago,
together face a future shared
where threatened statues may be spared?
Oscar Milde
