William Sommers

The Step-Pyramid At Sakkara

This was the wrong place

to house the royal dead:

too far from town, too

blown by wind, too overfed

with dunes.  Even our guides

lament the sacred spot

as orange clouds of sand

engulf the camp. We’re caught

in the desert’s dervish

storm.  It grows much worse,

festering eyes, rawing lips:

we learn the mummy’s curse

is not protectively encased

in mystic evocation

but a planned revenge

disguised as bad location.

Egypt: The Road to Minya

You must wait in the chill sunrise

until he comes from a stained and

dust burned house with good morning

to share small sandwiches for break

fast. You drive as he points out

Farouk’s last palace (where yet a

sister lives in ruin) balanced on the

Nile’s sloped and blackened bank.

The dodge slithers hugging the nibbled

narrow two lane road, crowding past

Giza’s shadowed tips to fend off

Urban and take the turn to Minya.

You must enfilade small donkeys

bending rubber jointed knees

as they trudge pharonic loads of green,

while men in dress up sheets kneel

to carom prayers the country round

in a crackling ricochet of faith. Go

slow behind a fleet of desert ships,

passing them in sweated fear.  And he

tells you how Mohammed Ali built

canals to save the land from being

savaged by the Bedouin sand. You

rub eyes closed by the dripping heat.

You must see the village sadness jog

by the car, then peer down strewn lanes

that butt against yellow hills of waste.

This he sings is Nefertiti’s land where

she grew in beauty and in splendor,

then swallowed by the monumental life

She left at death these words for Minya:

History is now, the only war is in the soul,

The only hope is in the poor.  But he

does not believe she said it for the poor

are without hope. He tells you to

turn left and park behind the new hotel.

Notes From An International Conference

When I speak with your tongue

And you speak with mine

We might understand enough

About what we don’t mean

To at least exchange thoughts

Over  very hot coffee.

When I cannot speak with your words

And you can’t speak with mine

Except through another tongue

We can in the least silence

Consider our flawed humanity

As the coffee grows cold.

Copyright © 2004 William Sommers