The Return
In the holy of holies in thick dark smelling of birds and stone my blind hand’s pilgrimage unveils the symbol of life I have come back my trails of four thousand years and all their images twist to a single focus, spin to one fine brilliant vibrant point this Egypt this temple this soft dancing-ground of yellow dogs echoing sparrows and buried shame I have come back in shadows my long strange face shockingly beholds me The sun and my son haunt me in the reed baskets jostling crushed notes, cats cheap azure scarabs ubiquitous images of my peerless wife where is my city flat hot dust a rubble of stones between the holy cliff and sun-caught sails trekkers stare from donkey-back at the gates of death that swallowed me my hymns my sweet children flying and creeping creatures music all I knew pilgrims cluster in temples, in musty tombs tracing my broken features in the torchlight following with their finger-tips fine rays slim hands of the sun I have come back like the dog to its vomit I cannot undo naivety cannot erase stupidity cannot abase myself before my golden boy weeping begging his pardon cannot unmake the silly myths of heretic as hero nor can I dissuade a thousand souls from wanting to be me For I am he stripped of imagination’s glamour dispossessed of eyes name scraped away in the king list bones vanished regalia food for thieves I am he trapped in another life and pinioned to this shock newsreel ancient failure abject penitent powerless to plead to all these enchanted eyes my god delusion Drowning in memory grasping my own debris as it passes Begging the last feather to outweigh my guilty soul |