EGYPT: Sunset at Saqqara

 

 

                The only place I walk through wafers of light

 

                              flakes of laughter and lemon clear air

 

                    even the sand is luminous between the

 

yellow columns of delicate temple

 

                    and when you and I niche ourselves

 

                              either side the carved god

 

          we become god and goddess

 

freeing him to become mortal

 

                    to follow the now absent guide

 

 

the step pyramid of Zoser

 

          is heavy only in the text of paradox

 

 

Saqqara stops time

 

                    cascades sacred light

 

          from its gleaming temples

 

and as we leave:

 

           a pack of snarling yellow dogs with slender tails

 

                    hoop black against a flaming desert sky

 

 

                    we watch a splendor:

 

serenely smiling Ra, setting behind a parabolic dune

 

          feeding them some crumbs of human odyssey

                                                                                              

                                                                                       a.o.howell