Egyptian Funerary

Egyptian Funerary

1
If the clear voice of your tongue rang out, could our hands
receive the message without diminution? Or do voices
cry out with wet tongues? Does the greatest of
all voice lean into our being unheard, lingers,
searches for comprehension, leaves with regret?
Silence is a space where gods have entered.

Giants have been here. Men who bit into the earth. We know
they worked the rock with green copper, that they climbed up
into the stone, hammering the song of living gods. The truth
of god was not a burden and god's sentence was a water
on closed lids, struck with clear decision,
hit with unwavering glances.

Or can a vessel of flesh, or of stone, or of green copper
hold in careful measurement the sum of sorrow and pain;
who has set in the hollows of hieroglyphics a gesture
of wombs, the heaviness of blood, a muted, but lumbering
heart? You, who are dead, it concerns you intimately;
what will be your reply? what part of salvation is knowledge?

We have no house but common mouths.

2
Do not carry your feet beyond the Elephantine rocks. If a prayer
can constrain you, living gods shall keep you. They have
sworn to straighten every turn and fold your flesh has made.
Through nights of secret activity, what value have you placed
on interpretations? And the thieves who took the jewels of
your head? In a thousand years, have they turned back
your wild and unswayable urge?

Do not fear, I share your condition. I too could not find my life
until I broke it. Like you, I have stretched in my sheets.

My rest is already done
or I would not want it.
My work already has its merit
or I would not so anxiously look for it.
My death has already reached me
or I would not try to build a name
and house it.

Reseal the broken places.