So Many Gods
Kings and gods
and the remains of war.
I walk through the museum in Cairo.
The glass cases are covered in tape
there are sand bags against the windows
there are steps over more sandbags
just to get in
This is war
a country under seige.
More gods and kings
face to face
fighting for something
most of us do not want
I stop before the bust of Nefretiti
and a calm descends
the chaos all around,
the clatter, and the rubble
fade before this face
that looks towards the west
with such calm, and poise, and beauty
She is the still point
the fulcrum of the world
above which she shines
and yet she is surrounded
by gods and kings
Who are they?
Such petty kings
who needed gods to elevate their worth
some emblem they could carry into battle
like a standard held high
to advertise the pompous man beneath
This one is Rameses
this one Seti
and to mark them out
the numbers writ beneath the stone
…but which is which?
Nefretiti draws me back
She looks straight past me
into the eyes of eternity
I turn to look behind me
but can only see the tape-bound cases
the walls, and remnants,
so many remnants
but cannot see that great eternity
that Nefretiti sees
I journey down the Nile to Luxor
walk among the columns of the temple
open now to sky
Once this temple housed another god
crafted in the dark for power
Within the temple was a secret sanctum
made to hide the god
he was too fierce and holy for the common man to view
and so his power rested on the shoulders of the priests
those acolytes who got their power
from behind the blinds
from the depths of darkness
where everything was hidden
because they
and they alone
knew there was an empty space
behind that holy curtain
Power comes from secrecy
and power must be guarded
or it floats away to nothing
But now there are no secret places
there is no inner sanctum
no darkness between the columns
the sun shines through
and the desert sand blows its gritty fingers
into every crevice
and the god is gone
He died the day the curtain fell
I walk down to the Nile
summon a boat
I’m rowed across
to the land of the dead
where the sun sets
where the spirits blow
where the underworld
sleeps and will always sleep
I tramp around the tombs
marvel at the pictures on the walls
read the texts
and can almost see those dead souls
lying in some other death
beneath the western sands.
I sit under the great arched goddess of the night
Her feet are somewhere far behind me
Her hands stretched down to earth
rest somewhere in the west
and her body is lit with stars
She is my boundary
she is the far reaches of the ancient universe
The goddess smiles down on us
but I can never see her
just those tiny lights she holds
like stars upon her protecting body.
I stand upon the river bank
look far into the west
and see those tiny miles
into eternity
Four short miles of desert sand
are all I see
before the corner of the world
slips down beyond my sight
into some underworld
Beneath me are the dead
beneath me in the dark.
The fierce god of sacrifice
of blood and fear
has sunk beneath the sands.
I walk along the line of statues
listen to the breeze
mutter through the gaps in stone
This once mighty king
is now rooted to this spot
and can only sigh
and mutter like some dotard.
I walk away
to the river bank
My boatman rises
rows me home
as I listen to the river gurgles
and the noise of oars in rowlocks
I look up to the body of the goddess
her lanterns shine and sparkle
and maybe she protects me still
This is the old world
this is how men imprisoned gods
to do their bidding
locked them in dark cellars
imprisoned them behind walls
and told lies about them
to the world outside
to give themselves
the trappings of divinity
The morning comes.
I board the train going south
further into the desolate brown world
where sand and rock rule.
Along the riverbank
ancient cradles tip and fill
their buckets
and then tip and spill
the water into channels
Men sit
staring west into eternity
and maybe they stay
and stare all day
because there only is eternity
The train stops.
There is a small clump of trees
some huts and sheds
and sand
To the east is a band of rock
jutting above where once a city rose
This is Amarna
once capital of this mighty world
but now
the population is all around me,
maybe fifty souls
watching the event of the day
the arrival, and departure, of the train from Cairo.
In this land of ancient symbols time surrounds me
Here, facing the village is the present
Far back along the line is the past
the city of Cairo
and somewhere to the south
the future will gradually rise
to show itself
but now, I no longer travel from past to future
I am in the present
where now no city is.
Or has it too, like ancient Pharaohs
sunk beneath the ground
into that ancient underworld?
I have come to see the drawings in the caves.
I have come to see the new gods
and how they ruled the world
I have come to see where Nefretiti lived
with that awkward husband
and creator of the new religion
Sadly, there are sheds before me
and a tiny shade of trees
Behind me is the river and the western erg
around me is a charming bunch of children
and somewhere to the east my destination.
I bargain for a guide
In return
I get the whole village
One man has a donkey
the children have arms to carry my bags
the women have nothing to do
and so they follow too
The village empties
I ride in front with guide
my entourage behind
I feel like some intrepid traveller
with his porters heading to the jungle
A glance behind
shows the village spread behind me
the women hold their veils
tight around the face
against the sand
the older men have staves they use
like sturdy walking sticks
the children run criss-cross
around us in a game
and so we travel east
where once a city was
but now is nothing but the wind-blown sand
At last the hillside looms above us
we wend our way between the rocks
the ladies sit
the children play among the boulders
I dismount
my guide points to a metal door
that is the entrance to the cave.
I climb
A man is standing by the opening
he greets me with the words of peace
I bow and repeat the mantra
and reach out my hand
and now begins a kind of play
as each acts out his part
This is the desert
a culture far removed from where I live
and so I must observe the customs
I am the honoured guest
he the trusty gate-keeper
I tell him I have come so many miles
to see the treasures that he guards
I come from London
all the way from one great city
to another that once upon a time was great
and I salute its guardian
He asks for news of London town
and we sit and chat
the kettle boils
and we wait while another ritual plays its role
The guardian pours a stream of tea
takes a sip, and pours it back
smiles, and only then he fills my cup
We face each other sucking tea
and then he asks me why I came.
Of course he knows
but protocols are protocols
I tell him that the news of this great cave
has reached the citizens of London
The fame of his great pictures held within
has travelled round the world
and I have come to see them
And then
he asks me for my ticket.
I nearly drop my tea.
“My ticket? But I have no ticket.”
The guardian’s face is grave
“You cannot see the paintings if you have no ticket.”
“And you can sell me one?”
I smile.
The guardian shakes his head.
“You must go to Cairo to buy your ticket.”
“But…” I splutter and rise to my feet
“You cannot let me in?”
“I have a duty as the guardian.”
I sympathise
I sit down again
and tell him that his duty is well known
as far afield as Cairo
and even in the country where I live.
He offers me more tea
and we argue back and forth
not about the key
but about his honesty
and the pictures kept within
and my long hard journey
all the way from London town.
But he is adamant
without a paper from that far off office
I can see no paintings.
I tell him that instead
I will go to see the scratchings,
far inferior, of course,
in those hillside caves
far south in Nubia
The guardian gives a look of horror
as I rise and beg to leave.
“My friends in London will be sad”
I mutter quietly as I pick my way
back down to where my transport waits.
I mount my donkey
as the guide holds my foot
and we turn towards the railway line
Back the way we came
the donkey moves with tiny steps,
a hundred yards
two hundred yards
and we walk alone.
The children still play around the rocks
the ladies chatter
and break out their little boxes
and start their lunch
Not a single one follows
they know a compromise is due
And so the donkey walks
Three hundred yards.
From behind there comes a shout
I glance towards my guide
He shakes his head.
And so the donkey walks
another fifty yards
Another shout.
I glance again.
My guide stops.
But all he does is remove a sandal
pretends to empty out a stone.
There is another shout
My guide turns,
but I look west.
The guardian and the guide
shout back and forth across the desert sand
but what they say
I cannot understand
We turn the donkey and walk back.
I weave my way along the path
up towards the metal door
I must be careful what I say
The guardian tells me that it would be rude
to send me on my way
without a little sustenance.
I tell him that I thank him for his care
and ask him, because I have no ticket,
can he tell me all about the pictures that he guards
I must have something I can tell my friends
I share his food
I share his tea
and he tells me all about the cave
Below, the children have tired
and sit idly in the shade
The ladies have retreated into a gulley
The men talk lazily
the donkey simply waits.
The guardian gets up
“But let me show you what I mean.”
He takes a key
unlocks the metal door,
and swings it wide.
Inside, he picks up a bowl and cloth
strikes a match
which gutters and blows out
He waves his hands around
gets excited and growls
those infidels
those jews
they come with planes
they bomb the lines.
He puts down the bowl and walks outside
“Look there.”
He points me to the cables
that dangle from poles beside the Nile
They are too far away to see
but there is no power to give us light
and so the guardian lights the cloth.
The pictures on the walls
spring out
from three thousand years of darkness
They are bright and fresh
there are fields of corn
lakes are filled with fish
leaping in the sunlight
and everywhere the arms of the sun
reaching down to touch
the fields, the corn, the fish, the folk
every ray of sunshine ending in an outstretched hand
to touch the world with holiness and strength
every hand encouraging the fruits and fish to grow
The are no pictures of the temple
there is no darkened sanctum
hiding a vicious god
just the open skies
and the sun’s fruitful hand
touching every living thing.
The god has come out of hiding
he has come to be a helping hand.
And then, every painting
pictured in my brain,
I walk back through a door
that is three thousand years and more
into the modern day
and into a barren wasteland
stretching as far as the eye can see
towards the Nile
beyond the Nile
and into the dead west
where all the gods
finally go to rest.
There are no gods here
just a failure of the crops
a failure of the world
and the slow relentless
drift of the western desert sand
to meet the eastern barren rock.
I ride my donkey back
through a few more decades
to the modern railway track
and there I wait for another train
to take me south.
This is Nubia
where pyramids are small
and I can see further than I have ever seen
I am now so far back in history
that I see it clearly
and to the west
I see so far
that what I see is just a blur.
Down towards the Khartoum road
I see for forty miles
or maybe more
Due west the sand rises into the sky
till sky and desert mix and meld
There is no end to the land of the dead.
Here, I am high in the hills
and I can see the limits of the world
that bound the souls of those
who sleep beneath this rock
but when darkness covers the land
I can see further back in time and space
than any could whose sky was bound
by the body of the goddess
Beneath me is no land
just the darkness of the cave.
Above me stretches the goddess Nut.
Once upon a time
she bore the stars across her naked body
now she leans over me
invisible
but I can see so far beyond her body
to where the real stars burn and turn
I can see beyond the land
beyond the gods and goddesses
far out in history
to times before the earth became itself
before the sun was formed
I can see
right back to when the stars were flung
from that great singularity
and somewhere
if there is a god
that god must be and see
right down through all eternity
from the fastest flying star
now reaching out
to the edges of the universe
to the grains of sand I barely see
beneath my toes.
The only god there is
flies all about me
It is the universe itself
so large extending all through time
so complex that my tiny brain
will never reach so far to see that god.
Once upon a time
the great goddess stretched over me
lit with tiny lanterns
protecting me.
But now I am no longer child
and find the stories that were told
to keep me safe and warm
are no longer needed.
The universe is all about me
there are no gods to keep me safe
only the great god of the universe
whatever that may be
and so I will not worship petty man-made gods
I will no longer beg protection
but simply stare
out towards the ends of time
and smile at the comfort
of my lack of comprehension
* * * * *