So those of you who have known me for 20 years may remember that I've done like four versions of this poem with different content but the same structure. This latest one was semi inspired by the Egyptian exhibition at the British museum. It's probably the version I'm happiest with so far
The Source
...Of the Nile
Between you and your God, a font of marble
A coffin of soil,
In jars, rounded as the body
They keep the sacred waters, secret as secretions
The body germinates in its sepulchre
All fourteen lost pieces
Reunited through devotion.
Who would sieve the whole of Egypt for you?
Who would know what to do?
Who would water you each day for a year?
And light an oil lamp for each night?
365 nights
14 pieces molded together
Til sweet grain breaks into the sweet light,
Uncountable.
The fruit of your labors
Is rebirth on the waters
They fill your body
To soaking.
...Of all my troubles
It's one or the other
Electric or mire
Spontaneous generation or a quicksand sunk with smothering fears
Worse than tears
Certainty murky and unmoored
Sinking in the silt of emptiness
If no one sieves the burning sand
My fourteen bodies remain
Dessicating disparate for all time
...Code
So as we live the layers of sand cover the graves of our parts
Beyond recognition
Layers of silt fall on the riverbank
Like broken reeds
The land builds up, layer by colored layer
It leaves its mark, readable to educated eyes
A wordless rainbow to the rest of us.
Am I one thing or many?
Is this soil a fistful of sand
Or each year's weather
What do we mean when we say - the land?
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