My Ba-Soul Found A Home

My body found a home
on the day the earth was opened;
he made a sanctuary for me
and filled it with sand.
His gale was the mourning of time
tearing through the lonely peaks;
that one western peak still lit by the dying sun.
Do they come to shed tears for me,
these winds, these sands, these peaks;
or do they proclaim time as the victor,
whose unstoppable footfall makes pilgrimage
to every door.

My image found a home
with blue marguerites on gold;
they flashed for my hidden eyes
against a shroud like the empty sky.
While the mountains reach to embrace her-
she stretching naked above-
my hands find garlands of cornflowers
chanting in heavenly tones.
Do all their petals sing for me,
the cornflower, lotus, and mandrake;
or do they bid the living to live,
to wear well life’s fragile garland.

My ren-name found a home
like a nest in your memory,
where swallows twitter the words
the Gods wove on my mother’s tongue.
Speaking the colors of dawn- never of sunset-
you bring back my steps
to the gate of the eastern sky;
he receives me with a flourish of music
from your garden.
I hear the acclamation of sycamores
as my name darts between them;
my memory comes on swallow’s wings
to lift your heart to my eaves.
Do they always speak of me,
the sycamore, acacia, and willow;
or do they speak of life in their boughs,
swept up by the breath of the wind when he blows.

My ab-heart found a home
where the heron flies by day;
on his breast where the sun is born,
where the turquoise of sunrise hails.
I see with carnelian eyes and hear with jasper ears,
when the flight of spirits opens the sky
to close west’s hungry eyes.
Find me a crest, a wing, a talon;
for I have heard every bird with my ears,
and seen their trek with my eyes.
There is no clothing on the sky
when my heart beats below her;
she makes bright with starry form
my naked loins inside her.
Do they shine for me,
these stars, these lights, these lamps;
or do they tell of heaven’s hold
on earth’s ever-changing skin.

My ka-double found a home
where the ancient Gods abide;
whose immortal bodies share their life
from the flood where life began.
I was with them- all these Gods-
before the heavens and earth existed;
and I shall rise with their enduring stars
beyond the life of the world.
Deny or receive them, these Gods live,
whose forms may not be counted;
and I shall live with them in the vault
where travel the uncountable stars.
Do they travel for you in the sky,
these Gods, these stars, these ages;
or do they endure without our will
to shine for creation’s eyes.

My ba-soul found a home
in the place where jabirus walk;
their trail in the florid veil beckons wide,
a beacon of dancing flame.
The door was closed behind him
when twilight’s mouth was opened;
another door before his eyes
made wings from the dying sky.
I chase the rising stars by night,
their gates hold west at bay;
I make the dawn my gilded flight,
my corpse to rest by day.
Do they behold my corpse when he sleeps,
these birds of stellar design;
or do they see a changeless light
these eyes can see as mine.

My khaibit-shadow found a home
beside the swollen river,
whose tongue of beginnings speaks my name
when the nether waters rise.
I am this god who rises
from death’s terrestrial cavern;
to pass through the lapis veil above
without time’s heavy shroud.
Do not look for me in earth or tomb
where corpses go to slumber;
for I like the Gods pass through these doors
to claim the untiring sky.
Will you look for me within these hands,
this earth, this tomb, this corpse;
or will you see me as I soar,
a shade of the starry mantle.

My sekhem-power found a home
between the mountain’s thighs;
her gap in waiting held me tight
where the seed of the sun is born.
She glimmers for me with gold and electrum,
with lapis and turquoise stones;
these gods to become my flesh,
these spirits to become my bones.
You wear me like a garland of spring
whose poppies raise you high;
I throb as that drum between your legs
which reaches for the sky.
Does he come for me at dawn,
your spring, your drum, your garland;
or does he rise on the life within him
that knows the immortal cry.

My effective-akh found a home
in the nether marsh of light;
his radiant crest brought me up
where the Eye of the Sun is woken.
My plumes of dappled luster
foretell the day when dusk has fallen;
my eyes display the body of the sun
in whose mirror I am reflected.
Do not search the earth for me,
the banks, the fields, or mountains;
the horizons alone tell my story
every day from season to season.
Where I travel there are no corpses,
no skin or bones and blood;
for I am now a radiant form
above earth’s fragile mantle.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (32): Raise Up My Body / Let Your Sky Receive Me

My journey has brought me across the horizons
where sparrows carry the tongue of the Sun-God;
his words of dusk and daybreak shatter the loneliness of the sky,
now bright, now forlorn as morning and evening seek me.
What have I to do with sparrows who gossip of nightfall,
who summon with their little wings the movements of the veil?
I listen, and they speak of the Sun-God’s fragile skin,
a pale lotus of celestial blue;
he rises for them to unfurl his divine petals,
the language of the sky;
whereupon they chatter the words that part the veil before them.

Have they come to twitter of my slumber,
these sparrows who carry the mark of fire upon their breast?
I would be warmed by the face of their sun,
not drowned in the waters beneath the earth,
nor taken down by the cavern where wings tread the darkness.
The earth has become my father again, as he was when I was his seed;
shall I become a field of turquoise glimmering,
or a pasture of malachite summoning the flood?
If the earth is my father, then I shall wear a crown of cypress
upon my dusky brow;
I shall call the willow my second home, its mournful boughs my refuge.

I would have the bright wings of a heron,
whose immaculate sheen recalls the Sun-God’s first morning;
that morning which came fast over the torrent of the abyss,
pushing from it the sacral mound of the first beginning.
Here I would take the hand of my mother stretching out from the stars;
she comes from the Unwearying Ones, she comes from the north,
where rise but never tarry the Ancients who flew before me.
Mother, I see your starry breast and seize your glinting fingers;
your metal is gold which I take to my lips, your breast a constellation;
these are the stars that carry me to your thighs where life is waiting.

The heights I was called down from have called me back again;
the earth who is my keeper must give way to heaven’s gaze.
The Bull’s Thigh who bore me now appears before my eyes,
in whose lofty reflection the north is roused from its western daze.
Who comes in the north to be my mother, who opens wide her thighs;
my yawning horizon of eastern metal with electrum in her eyes.

You goddess of northern breast and eastern thighs,
where the Sun-God travels to recover his face of morning;
open for me your cleft of the dawn and secure for me our beginning.
I approach with the flesh and bones of a mortal man;
raise up my body from the earth and let your sky receive me.
I approach with the bleary eyes of a twilight wanderer;
open wide my eyes with northern light and let your stars behold me.
I approach with lips sealed fast by the nether sky;
open up my mouth with heavenly metal and let your speech become me.
I approach with nostrils shut against the wind;
open up my nose with that heavenly lotus and let your breath suffuse me.
I approach with loins of western slumber;
open up my channels with living blood and let your womb conceive me.
I approach with the sand of the desert on my feet;
open up the river above my brow and let your flood cleanse me.
I approach knowing the season of nightfall;
open up the day before my feet and let your dawn shine through me.

I see the sparrows now and hear their language in my heart;
not the gossip of the evening, but the words of the morning,
ringing clear through the passing clouds;
they pass on by, but I do not pass, with lips and nostrils breathing.
My heart has sheltered a heron, who knows what the great Gods know;
the earth that gives us cannot keep us, like the mountains that kiss the sky;
our earth becomes our Father, but our Mother lifts us high.

Father, I have my bones from you, my skin and breath of clouds;
but these things I return to you when the heights call me back to her arms.
I hear the willow and cypress, the boughs of your ancient sycamore;
but he too lets go of my feet when the tread of the sky finds my toes.
My arms become the wings of a heron to know the Imperishable Stars;
and I like they have a crest for a mirror, from which the Sun-God shines.

Mother, your body takes my earthly bones, my skin and eyes of water;
these things began in the heights of your stars,
where the light that guides the earth comes.
I behold your northern sky, your cleft of gold and its ocean;
blood swells my loins and I enter the lips where life first hears its calling.
O you goddess of twilight breast and morning thighs,
where all souls travel to recover their first language of the sky;
open for me your legs of the soul-house and give me my beginning.
I approach with the flesh and bones of a mortal man;
raise up my body from the earth and let your sky receive me.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Bring Me the Red Cloth

Where my feet have traveled leaves the dust upon them;
those mountains yonder, over whose peaks the spirits hover,
between whose amber towers the swallows make pilgrimage.
I hear their animated conversation beneath the wind’s howl,
who weaves his forecast for the wings of hawks and sparrows.
They have come the way I have come, though I on feet and they on air;
we tread the roads above and below, our end the same in time’s keeping.

But I require a body of spirit when that of flesh has tired;
I know my blood and I know my bones, taken by the desert hallows.
Tears and cornflowers have given my toes ornaments of the sky;
shall I now drift on forget-me-nots, or take the wings of poppies?
I would rather have the lotus with me when dusk closes his inevitable hand.

Bring me a torch to brighten my way, and tell dusk to flee like a shadow.
There are sunbeams in my hand through which the morning is born;
let me be one of those blinking lances piercing the flank of the veil;
to know my mother’s thighs of heaven and shine with the face of her sun.

Bring me sandals for my pilgrim’s feet, and tell the Gods to open a road.
There are the doors of the sky through which birds ascend;
let me be a swallow of red breast and red cowl, of lapis wing and foot;
to grapple the sky and proclaim the clouds as my call opens wide the doors.

Bring me a scepter of fine gold for my hand, and tell the sky to obey me.
There are the clouds and their rains before me, the offerings of the vault;
let me be a hawk of gilded form and feather, of striking light above the surface;
to appear through the rivers of the sky as master of all the waters know.

Bring me horizon’s eyes for my brow, and tell the dawn to behold me.
There is the east and there is the west, whose doors know spirit’s wings;
let me be a falcon of divine luminescence, of wholesome sight and knowledge;
to foresee the morning after night’s bleary fall where vision becomes my apex.

Bring me a mount of electrum for my perch, and tell the abyss to retreat.
There are dark waters where eternity dwells, a sea of beginning’s making;
let me be a heron of dazzling white crest, of shimmering eye and bill;
to awaken the eye of horizon’s becoming in east where I am sired.

Bring me a rudder for my boat of the sky, and tell the waters to fear me.
There is the north and there is the south, of wind and water rushing;
let me be a holy crocodile, of malachite jaw and carnelian stare;
to cut through the depths of untamed floods where stealth and speed become me.

Bring me the breath of the Sun-God, and tell darkness he has his master.
There is the beginning and there is the end, an ocean without horizon;
let me be that lotus of celestial view, of fiery crown and center;
to break the surface with my copper mirror as first light’s face appears.

Bring me the red cloth of my beginning, and tell my mother to bear me.
There is seed and there is a womb, a father and mother within me;
let me be that child in his trappings, an image of eternal design;
to knit together my flesh and my bones as spirit meets its makers.

I require a new beginning once my end has found me;
I know my slumber and my blindness, when land becomes my lover.
Shroud and coffin have given my loins ornaments of the soil;
shall I now be still with the willow, or have sycamore boughs as my cradle?
I would rather have the lotus with me when earth takes me in hand.

Where my feet have traveled leaves the stars upon them;
those constellations yonder, in whose spheres the spirits glimmer,
in whose wake I circumnavigate the sky.
I behold their untiring dance in the north, where souls on wings ascend;
their passage from the ground below makes death a stellar path.
They have come the way I have come, though I on feet and they on air;
we tread the roads above and below, our end the same in time’s keeping.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Do His Hands Touch the Sky

Through the rustling branches of the tamarisk I hear
the voice of that goddess who brings up hearts in her hands;
her cascade of water entices me to sit beside the thigh of the sun,
to which the souls of the earth are drawn in their twilight season.

With cupped hands I drink from the flood of her golden breast,
the life she gives striking the desert of my lips as turquoise.
I drink the memory of precious stone where my youth is kept;
beneath that perpetual sky I find the wings of my fledgling ba.

O my ba-soul dressed in the glimmering dawn,
where the waters of life seek out worthy lips;
my goddess of the east arrays you in cornflower blue
with her arms of encircling gold;
just as she does for the shoulders of the naked sun,
her cloak of dappled plumage becomes your eastern power.

The heron becomes you, whose double plume stirs the horizons;
he knows the essence of lotus that breathes through his wings.
Those spirits in the drifting sky chirp your name as Ra of the heights,
who has come from the beginning with sunbeams for his colors.

O my ba-soul powered by the undaunted wind,
where the breath of the vault revivifies worthy lungs;
my goddess of the north hoists a sail for you
with her arms of turquoise enchantments;
just as she does for the boat of the twilight sun,
her fabric of swift moving clouds becomes your northern power.

Do his hands touch the sky, this ba of mine in starry flight;
for I have seen the Bull’s Thigh in a veil worn high, in lofty waters suspended.
His wholesome eyes climb that ladder in the sky, on wing of north ascending;
this ba of mine with indestructible wings to join the zenith of lights.

O my ba-soul drawn forth by the gap in the sky,
where the mouth of the sycamore swallows worthy spirits;
my goddess of the west unveils her thighs for you
with her arms of rising constellations;
just as she does for the face of the nighttime sun,
her womb of twelve hours becomes your western power.

I began as a ram-soul of the ancient earth driving the light before me;
whose flickering form like the wings of sparrows caught the evening air.
My skin of myrrh knows the history of the sky, her breath of time and memory;
where the body of the earth is born again on the wings of the eastern beacon.

O my ba-soul clad in the spring of that heavenly sycamore,
where the breast of the sky fills worthy hearts;
my goddess of the south opens the flood for you
with her arms of lapis renewal;
just as she does for the loins of the potent sun,
her cleft of celestial waters becomes your southern power.

I do not end as a corpse planted in the keep of the earth,
nor can the hallows of the west trap me behind her dusky shutters;
they are thrown wide open by the span of my wings of the horizon,
from which the sun rises to the netherworld’s acclaim.

Through the rustling branches of the sycamore I hear
the voice of that goddess who brings up spirits in her hands;
her song of birds in flight draws me down beside the thigh of the sky,
to which the souls of the earth are drawn in their twilight season.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (31): I Know the Language of Swallows

The sky is my mother who summons me from the west,
her net of gods shining over her body of stellar metal;
they who appear upon her mantle of lapis lazuli,
glimmering over the horizon as dust of fine gold.
I came forth from her when the fresh east yawned,
passing the morning beetle of iridescent shell and wing;
how I made my youthful appearance over these lands,
bolstered by the north wind whose voice knows my name.

This wind-god says to me:
“My Sky-Goddess calls you in the west;
she holds the gate of the hidden land in her mouth of the Unwearying Stars,
where fly the bird-souls who converse with the sun.
Behold their ruddy faces and wings of burnished metal,
going round the limits of the sky who speaks their tongue;
the language of the east which howls with the dawn,
which declares life and denies slumber.

“I soar beneath the bellies of the clouds that uplift swallows,
who in their beaks carry the words of the Sun-God when he sails.
They rise by me to declare what they know, and you rise by me;
what you know is that eastern tongue which reckons the dawn,
its light-rays and heron of dazzling white crest.
My eyes are open and rise as the heron rises;
you too with open eyes shall rise as the heron rises,
with crest of curd white and mantle of blinding electrum.

“You enter the west as a ram of the earth with aged skin,
with dusky gold as your flesh and silver as your bones.
When the swallows titter to my clouds, they tell of your sleep;
what all men come to when they walk in the east and veer west,
when they draw the breath of sky and eat from the earth;
but the west knows the east as south foretells north,
and your feet of these directions follows your breath of the sky”.

My breath is my mother who embraces me in the north;
she appears to set me upright between her rosy-gold thighs,
the ladder where souls burst forth to herald eternity.
I am fashioned from their same metal, from their mirror of electrum;
when I appear it is with the face of the untarnished sun,
rising as the Wind-God said I would, cognizant of the language of swallows.

Do living men know the language of swallows?
We see them weave to and fro in the boughs of the sycamore,
our eyes of earth blind against the train of spirits rising with them;
for their eyes are of spirit while their wings alight on earth,
unlike the eyes of men which see only earth and know only skin.
But I who know the Sun-God take up his colors on my flesh,
and when I go into the west it is with the wings of a dawn-knowing swallow.

You swallows of the Sun-God bear his holy marks on face and breast;
red is the Sun-God’s color when he rises with your sanguine wings,
when he captures the eastern sky from its nighttime coils.
My face glows red and my breast is dappled with jasper,
having gazed upon your sycamores and made my flight between them.
Your wings know my arms, you swallows, and your red cowl becomes me;
it brightens the pre-dawn horizon with the blood of my enemies;
sleep in the west and bleariness in my eyes.
These eyes of mine are open with the eyes of swallows,
never bleary, and sharp with the lance of first light.

These swallows say to me:
“Look!  Open your eyes to see the thighs of your mother, opening.
She is the lamp of the nether sky uplifting the lamps of the stars to her breasts;
these gods of the primordial sea who light the way for spirits traveling.
Travel then, when your time for entering the west comes!
Travel with our wings upon you so that your feet do not tarry on the earth;
but they mix with the Unwearying Stars that sweep the east,
that drive forward the clouds and herald the day.

“Our enchantments are the east which meets birth;
the earth that meets sky;
the gap of the west that meets bird-souls;
the breath that meets the north;
the flood that meets the south;
the turquoise that meets the desert;
the date palm that meets the arid country;
the acacia that meets the rain;
the lotus which meets the nose of the sun;
the sun who meets the horizon;
the horizon which meets the nether sky;
the nether sky which meets the earth above.

“These are the enchantments, the words, the language the Sun-God tells us,
and only the ears that hear his colors may know his speech;
they who know his colors and thus know his speech will know the lives he lives.
His colors are these Gods upon him, which see his lives as theirs in the sky;
so know his colors and thus his lives, and live as he lives in the eternal sky!”

The sky is my mother who raises me in the east,
her skin of brilliant fabric woven from the stars;
they whose unwearying eyes see spirits rise
as swallows of the ruddy dawn.
I came forth from her with their language on my lips,
open with the lance of daybreak by which the earth lives.
This is how I live again, once the west has summoned,
when my tread follows birds of iridescent crest and wing.
How I make my youthful appearance over these lands,
uplifted by the north wind whose voice knows my name.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (30): We Are All Shadows / Traveling Through the Open Doors

Earth, you are the residence of my bones,
the keep of my flesh with me from the beginning,
the house my ancient father made for me;
I will never be separated from you,
as your mountains will never be separated from your horizons;
they will endure on your loins as the sycamore endures,
rearing the green essence of field and meadow,
orchard and vineyard, cavern and grove.
You have passed to me these secret things from your seed,
and I carry them with me as the swallows carry the sun.

Sky, you are the residence of my spirit,
the keep of my shade with me from the beginning,
the house my ancient mother made for me;
I will never be separated from you,
as your stars will never be separated from your vault;
they will remain imperishable as your directions are imperishable,
holding aloft the gleam of Mooring Post and Bull’s Foreleg,
She-Hippopotamus and Crocodile, Lion and Myriad.
You have passed to me these constant things from your breast,
and I carry them with me as the winds carry the clouds.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the earth,
who gives us his seed of the ages stretching back to our beginning;
where we come from the gap of darkness and into the day;
where the thighs of our mother stretch forth to give us the world;
where the world is held up by the ocean encircled by void;
where the void is the source of the many from which the world is woven;
where darkness is the warp and light the weft of the primordial gods;
where the Gods comprise earth and sky, below and above, seed and womb;
where are hidden the children of the earth in the tears of daylight;
where the west swallows the stars that are born again from her body;
where the east spreads wide for the mirror of the swelling sun;
where are completed all the Mysteries that go forth as creation’s shadows.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the sky,
who gives us her breast of the eternal courses traversed by the sun;
traversed by the Unwearying Stars who rise and set by me;
traversed by the ark of daybreak which sails with me;
traversed by the ark of twilight which moors with me;
traversed by the souls of the north which provide breath for me;
traversed by the souls of the south which provide water for me;
traversed by the hawk of the east who shines gold on me;
traversed by the stork of the west who gives flight to me;
traversed by the Sun-God whose right eye opens for me;
traversed by the Moon-God whose left eye opens for me;
traversed by all the Secrets that go forth as life’s shadows.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of flesh and bone;
I take the pathway of doors my corpse provides,
steering me with the hand of my senses into the field beyond.
Life is my father, the deeds of my skin,
and death is my mother, whose clothing of the dusk conceals the virgin dawn.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the eyes;
I take the road of doors my mirrors provide,
gazing through my corpse and predicting the spirit following the flesh.
Daylight is the map my living feet tread,
and nightfall is the guide of my starry stride.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the ears;
I take the counsel of doors my music provides,
singing from the sparrows who hear the sun’s summons.
Earthly voices are the direction of my bones,
while the words of the sky provide wings for my soul.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the nose;
I inhale the incense of doors the earth provides,
swelling my worldly lungs with the savor of the immortal Gods.
Sweat is the scent of my corpse of the earth,
while breath is the flavor of my spirit of air going forth.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the mountains;
I ascend the soil of doors the beginning provides,
bursting up through the ocean of my mother as the mound.
My base is the road taken by the sun when he declines,
while my apex is the golden throne his ascension mounts.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the winds;
I sail the watercourse of doors sky’s breath provides,
moving in and moving out from the reach of the horizons.
My coming from the north revivifies the eternal sky,
while my coming from the south renews the enduring earth.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the rivers;
I quicken the flood of doors the netherworld provides,
overflowing every channel where my name spreads like water.
My water of the fields is the green of precious turquoise,
while my water in the sky is the starry veil of lapis lazuli.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the east;
I take to my breast the lotus of doors daybreak provides,
striking my heart with the fiery crest of a heron.
His call is my name rising from the pyramidion of the sun,
and his alighting is my soul’s forthcoming to the region of eternity.

We are all shadows
traveling through the open doors of the west;
I enter the mouth of doors twilight provides,
reuniting with my mother who acclaims her star-born child.
Her darkness is the secret cavern where my corpse is renewed,
while her light is the celestial door thrown open for my soul.

I am a shadow, like all the shadows
traveling through the open doors of the worlds;
we enter the lifetimes of doors eternity provides,
going forth by dawn and coming in by dusk.
Our life is the earth our corpse mirrors in daylight,
while death is the sky our soul ascends when night is opened.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (29): In the Field of Offerings / the Gods Have Reared Upon Their Words

Clothed in white, my spirit sails the new horizon
where memory has never been forgotten,
in the place where the face of the northern sky blushes with stars;
theirs are remembrances of the first words ever spoken,
heard now with my ears upon the gusts that celebrate the sunrise.
“You remember where you sailed from”, they whisper behind my damp ears,
“from that lofty sycamore of memory which stretched the womb of the sky;
she yawned for you with her mouth in the evening,
and took you in with her flood to ride the waters where the sun descends.
The sun is your companion, like memory, which rises and falls
throughout the ages; but the knowledge he imparts is the eternal becoming,
which governs all things the Gods have reared upon their words.

“Gods are this forthcoming with the sun,
imbibing his memories as beams of light,
then rearing them as language in the turquoise boughs of the sycamore.
Her branches are the ages and her leaves every name ever spoken;
yours are reckoned with their malachite and green of jasper,
their turquoise of the sky whose constellations spell out your knowledge.
You have heard this knowledge where you sailed from,
the thighs of your Mother in the east, which bestowed you your beginning.
Listen to your mother who resides in the east,
for hers are the lips that know the memories of the sun
in his millions of circuits through her womb;
she who has counted them and knows their vast enchantments.
How many circuits and how many cycles has your spirit reckoned?
Look to the stars traversing their river in the sky,
in whose sacred depths the words of memory remain forever”.

I take my oar in hand across the waters;
their azure fills my eyes with the sky, my heart with the depths.
Gazing up to meet my Mother with fresh eyes and wet ears,
I inhale the savor of this Field of Reeds in which spirits paddle
the boats of yesterday and tomorrow.
Yesterday I was a sapling of that ancient sycamore,
with no more leaves than days stretching back behind me.
I did not know history or regret, nor the ages of my life
guided by the sun’s countless risings and settings;
these the courses of nature which remained a mystery
to my untested countenance.

Mother, take me to your holy shore from my boat of offerings;
let me offer what I bring to the sky who bore me,
feeding me her breast from which my names of many ages fell;
let me offer my feet to the earth who carried me,
giving me his roads and his fields of verdant memory;
let me offer my legs to the mountains who stood for me,
enduring my deeds as I traversed my name of history;
let me offer my knees to the trees who bent for me,
showing my body the ladder ascended by spirits;
let me offer my loins to the fields who gave me their seed,
sprouting for me the numberless beginnings of which we are made;
let me offer my manhood to the vault’s unwearying stars,
ascending for me as a map of my becoming in the twilight sky;
let me offer my navel to the sacred river who brought me,
quenching my ignorance with the flood of our ancient memory;
let me offer my breast to the south who nourished me,
bringing me the waters beneath which my memory was renewed;
let me offer my throat to the north who breathed me,
exhaling the divine language through which I live again;
let me offer my mouth to the west who took in my corpse,
weaving for me a pristine form from the net of indestructible stars;
let me offer my eyes to the east who beholds the reborn sun,
seeing my spirit come forth by dawn as a swallow of bright light;
let me offer my nostrils to the wind who brought me forward,
urging my bones to know their own strength against the tide;
let me offer my ears to the swallows who carry the voice of the Gods,
reminding my heart who truly gave its beating and its breath;
let me offer my brow to the peaks which pierce the veil of heaven,
bestowing my two eyes sight of the doors through which spirits fly;
let me offer the vessel of my heart to the Gods who comprise creation,
holding all the worlds in their tongues of sacred memory.

Mother, lead me to the waters of the sky where the stars never rest;
may they receive with their radiant hands my offerings,
my bones and my flesh clad in a pure mantle of light.
See my open palms raised to the starry vault above my brow,
and shine with your voice the knowledge of the open sky where I sail.
For I am your secret son born from the gap in the eastern sky,
and what I know is what throws wide open the doors of the portal of light.
I have seen by the renewed flame of the sun that heron of flashing plume,
whose crest has become my crest on the golden thighs of dawn;
his language is my language which bespeaks the Gods,
numberless as the unceasing stars in the midnight sky.
She is my sky and my Mother,
lifting me up by her flood to the place of my new beginning.

I take my oar in hand to the horizon where spirits rise as herons;
they alight for my outstretched arms on their Mound of our beginning.
Remove the earth from my well-traveled feet and give me my birth,
from this Mound where the flood retreated from the sun;
I come clothed in white to drink the ancient waters.
This is the treading-place of spirits on their celestial wings,
where I too have traveled in a boat sped by the arms of Mother Sky.
She yawned for me with her mouth in the morning,
opening her horizon to send me forth where the sun ascends.
The sun is my companion, like memory, which enters and departs
throughout my ages; but the knowledge he imparts is my eternal becoming,
which governs all my forms the Gods have reared upon their words.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

The Gods Sail With Me / Where Sky Becomes My Mother

I have remembered those waters of my first beginning,
sheltering the banks on either side where I travel;
before my mother, before my father, before my earth and sky,
this deluge from which the holy mound rose on the first day.
Darkness, shade, and the snares of nightfall cannot know me,
nor can my scent reach their ravenous nostrils;
they who know time, flesh, and the bones of living men,
who seek the company of earthbound spirits to bring them down.
But the Gods sail with me when I take to the celestial waterway,
their luminescence reaching out with hallowed arms before me;
no shade can stride farther than their reach of electrum brilliance.

I am in the entourage of that dazzling heron of the first dawn,
whose plumage bespeaks the light rays of the sun,
his bill of pure gold fresh with the perfume of the lotus.
His enchantments sail with me and upon my strong arms;
like those of a god of the First Occasion, whose voice recalls the sacred flood,
my words of power pierce the cloud banks and are heard by all spirits.
Great Heron is my name when I sail the nether waterways,
when my silver-white crest is read from a distance of millions of strides;
and the spirits say of me:

“Behold!  There is one who comes among us with the torch of a god;
his savor is essence of lotus, and his plume is the crest of the sacred heron.
His beaming face is the disk of the Sun-God,
whose electrum mirror knows the uppermost sky.
See how the shades and twilight spirits flee before his feet of sharp malachite,
which have traversed the hallows where Ra the great Ram-Soul is reborn.
Smell his essence of myrrh which goes before him,
predicting his rising from the corpse of the silent earth;
but silence does not become him,
and his tongue rends the sky with divine language.
The Gods sail with him when he takes to the celestial waterway”.

My words are the memory of that First Occasion which came before men,
rippling out across the opaque waters of our beginning.
Having heard the swallows in their primordial sky,
I repeated to my heart what the Sun-God spoke when he first opened his eyes:
I summon the body of the sky from the nether waters;
the sky is my mother who shall give me birth from her body of fine gold.
I summon my light-body from her belly to burn as one of the Imperishable Stars;
she is my mantle, and I am the flame that burns for her by day.
I summon my bones as a ladder reaching up to the arms of my starry mother;
she stretches out her arms of gold for me and takes me to her breast.
I summon my hair of lapis lazuli to glint upon her shoulders by night;
she takes my shining locks to her brow as sovereign of the upper regions.
I summon the silver crescent of twilight to embrace her holy thigh;
my mother of the sky receives her eventide mantle as light of horizons.
I summon the golden net of nightfall in which flicker the souls of stars;
her breasts and thighs glisten in her veil upon which the Gods reign.
I summon my two eyes from the cover of the shady waters;
she hallows my right eye as daylight and my left eye as evening’s guide.
I summon my nostrils as the essence of that first lotus upon the flood;
she takes my breath as her voice by which the repeating dawn is heralded.
I summon my two lips in darkness and open my mouth to the waters;
she opens her dappled thighs and fills the void with her waters of the nether sky.
I summon my two ears by the east and west-facing mountains;
she breaks open her horizons at the thundering voice of my light-body.
I summon the day and the night as the two horizons of my travels;
she swallows me at dusk to give me birth on the first morning of the sky.

These are the enchantments I heard from the swallows
when the first morning clothed the naked sky with his ruddy mantle;
my eyes peering out over the celestial waterway to receive its turquoise glare,
I beheld the mound of the earth ascending from the pristine flood.
Who held back the torrent for my ship to pass when the waters surged?
The Gods sailed with me in their breath of magical power,
coming forth by daylight as the language of the Sun-God’s names;
they hold his forms and his tongues in secret,
known only to the swallows who ascend with his unceasing rays.

Great and elder sun I call out your names
when water travels fast over the banks of my earth,
when come the floods of shadow that rend boats from their moorings.
I have remembered your language from which the Unwearying Stars rose;
their lights are my lights, and their rising is my rising in the florid sky.
O banks of the earth who hold corpses fast in their trappings,
you cannot hold me in your time or your decay,
for the Gods sail with me when I go forth by day into the nether waters;
they take me round the great mooring post in heaven,
where the indestructible stars shine with the fire of my names.

Darkness, shade, and shadows cannot find me where I glimmer,
nor the snares of water catch my lotus essence where it glides.
They who know only shade will never see me as I pass,
for the light I bear turns eyes away that cannot know their beginning.
The Gods sail with me when I take to the celestial waterway,
when these eyes of mine take to the horizons where sky becomes my mother.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Seize the Sky/ Mirrors of Hwt-Her

Hwt-Her of lofty form, standing firm in your field of turquoise,
striding heavenly circuits with horns of gold blazing,
your lapis veil the dancing ground of indestructible stars;
you are the mansion suspended above the brow of the earth,
whose hawk of enduring metal seeks the shelter of your thighs.
Taking his young body to your breast of heavenly milk,
your enchantments of the dawn grant him wings of stellar dominion.
Seize his wings, your wings, and bring them down for me, for me!

Come down O Goddess, bending low to the home of earthbound souls,
swinging your lights on the horizon before us, opening your two eyes;
these the dwellings of your whirling spirits, dancing as seven ladies in your train.
We see the horizons overtaken with riotous color of your two bodies,
one brightening the day with electrum, and the other clothing the night in alabaster; mirrors of the sky in whose depths the lights mingle.
Seize the sky, your sky, and pull it down for me, for me!

Swimming in your sky-waters, dappled with lapis lazuli,
carrying the Unwearying Stars in your belly,
your torches of gold going before you in the Nether Sky;
yours is the body of sublime form holding fast the gaze of the earth,
who beholds your thighs of fine and burnished gold welcoming the sun.
You praise him with your lips above, and with those below you hold him;
his emergence as that lotus of light-rays renews the world from your cavern .
Seize the sun, your sun, and send him out for me, for me!

Come down O Goddess, with mirrors foretelling your eyes;
let the east be your right eye and the west your left,
and my eyes behold you opening, opening.
May heaven open and the earth open;
your mirrors are dawn and twilight where spirits rise.
May the north open and the south open;
your mirrors are breath of sky and the flood becoming.
May the east open and the west open;
your mirrors are the birth and swallowing of the Sun-God.
May the lotus in his dark abyss open;
your mirrors are the going forth and withdrawal of the beginning.
May the secret Mound in his waters open;
your mirrors are the birth pangs and devouring of the earth.
May the Sacred Eye in its green wholeness open;
your mirrors are the division and reconciliation of powers.
May the Eye of the Sun open and the Eye of the Moon open;
your mirrors are the Day-Ark and the Night-Ark forthcoming.
May the Bakhu-Mountain open and the Manu-Mountain open;
your mirrors are the cleft of east and gap of the west receiving.
May the eastern and western portals open;
your mirrors are the stations of rebirth and eternity unceasing.
Come down O Goddess, with your mirrors predicting day after night;
let their spirits follow after you as your body of heaven opens,
and my earthly body opening, opening!

See now my legs striding the circuits of the stars by you;
you, the sky-mansion of unbroken light, between whose thighs the sun soars.
My body becomes your stars by you, seized by your hand and lifted up.
My eyes become your zenith by you, seized by your brow and lifted up.
My nose becomes your lotus by you, seized by your breath and lifted up.
My lips become your command by you, seized by your tongue and lifted up.
My tongue becomes your authority by you, seized by your heart and lifted up.
My heart becomes your enchantment by you, seized by your magic and lifted up.
My seed becomes your magic by you, seized by your womb and lifted up.
My thighs become your two horizons by you, seized by your eyes and lifted up.
My breast becomes your falcon of gold by you, seized by your thighs and lifted up.

Hear now my voice of turquoise shooting from your field;
you, the Mistress of Turquoise upon whose breasts the stars grow.
Take up my spirit-body to your starry breast and set him there;
establish his wings as those of a hawk of gold to glimmer forever.
You shine, and I see my reflection in your mirrors of the horizons.
You open your lips of the west, and I descend beneath your belly.
You dance in the mantle of the Unwearying Stars, and I rise up as one of them.
You throw back the doors of the nether portals,
and I go forth to the Mooring Post of the sky.
You place the diadem of the vault upon your apex,
and I become one of those Imperishable Stars enduring.
You open the lotus of the sun before your full face,
and I become the countenance of light filling your two eyes.
You shake your fecund thighs between the eastern sycamores,
and I become the Sun-Calf reborn from your turquoise sky.
You rule the nether region where earthbound spirits travel,
and I become a soul in flight encircled by your arms.
I become a portion of that ascended veil dazzling on your fresh horizon;
and you seize the sky to bring it down for me, for me.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (27): The Gods Drink Their Image

I go in carrying my corpse in my hands;
all that I have from my Mother of my many lives,
their fears and transgressions pecking like crows;
these my entourage from my many lives,
their black cloaks haunting my shade for all its deeds.
We carry with us the corpses of all our accomplishments,
and like sparrows they gossip our names to the sky.
Sky, hungry sky, swallowing my sun into the hallowed west;
you swallow my mortal flesh whole, and with it my deeds;
for the sky is our beginning and our end,
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I go in carrying my fear on my naked bones;
does he know his name, his scent, his flavor;
all that he has from his Father of his many forms.
Once I was green and gold like a field of corn,
my lighthearted soul fluttering above me as the azure sky.
I knew laughing and drinking and lovemaking,
the gleaming mirror of the sun throbbing from my loins.
I knew the names of my light-spirits, swallows on the wind,
tittering with the sky in the language of the fresh earth;
their speech the ancient tongue of an earth and sky united.
I knew these words and this language in my heart,
which received the knowledge of memory from the swallows;
and they received it from the Sun-God,
whose lotus breath knows our beginning and our end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

Where are my swallows now, who saw with their carnelian eyes
the rising of my sun on the fresh horizon of the east;
when I was still young, flawless, and green as the earth was green;
when I stood with my bare ankles in the flood,
my hands sifting the droplets of their beginning;
when my brow wore the diadem of the sun’s rosy light,
his rays playing over my wet breast and thighs;
when my shade traveled near me and knew innocence
as its companion,
before it played with snares and become entangled in nets;
when my eyes could see the future of their earth,
his Father below and his Mother above;
when the indomitable mountains appeared yielding
to the soft touch of the eyes, their peaks as lips to kiss;
when my mouth knew its first kiss and tasted its first lovemaking,
the flood sliding between my open thighs
to receive the power of the desirous sun;
when my passions knew only their beginning, never their end,
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

My light-spirits began as swallows as all spirits do;
they know from their birth the language of the rising sun.
They alight on the edge of the sky to hear the stars,
to catch their unwearying travels in the words their memory weaves.
This is the language of the swallows kept by the Sun-God,
whose beams traverse the four directions where swallows fly.
Their breasts and rosy faces have been kissed by the sun’s lips,
and their wings by the midnight sky, where their flights have ended.

If we spoke the language of swallows, we would hear how we began;
how the shade of our beginning was fashioned in the deep,
where the coils of serpents choked the first Mound of the earth;
how the Sun-God found his mirror alone in the surging darkness,
peering for the first time at his reflection of burnished gold;
how the loins of our first Father grew a sycamore on the Mound,
its boughs the bearers of his passions stretching from the abyss;
how the turquoise sky was upraised by the sycamore of the first dawn,
her body of gold becoming the Mother of the untiring stars;
how the light-spirits were born as swallows to perch near the elder sun,
their ears hearing his first words ring out into the burden of shadows;
how the bodies of the Gods were fashioned from the ancient elements,
their powers of gold and turquoise springing up from the first Mound;
these powers knowing their beginning, but never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

This is where we gathered our powers and our forms,
our lives reaching out before us like shoots of green in a void;
where we began as light-spirits untarnished by the shade of mortality.
This is how I began when I was still a child and could hear
the language of swallows carried on the wind.
They gave me the memories of the Gods in their first bodies,
which appeared upon the mirror of waters the beginning held.
Our beginning, our youth, our green souls were reflected with them;
many in number, they opened their wet ears to hear the song of those Gods,
being our gods and our voices, our language and our forms.
How those waters of the void fell from us, leaving our corpses awake;
how I held my swallows in my hands like the beatings of my own heart.
Have I now wings to travel like those hearts on blue-black wings,
to carry words of turquoise that sprout from stagnant shade?
Have I now wings that know their beginning, but never know their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I have gone in carrying my heart in my hands;
all that I have from my Mother of my many lives,
and all my Father gave me from his loins clothed in shade.
All my transgressions perch on my heart’s shoulders
like those swallows on sky’s edge;
she recalls their exploits as they recall my deeds,
and as the Sun-God knows his language from beginning’s form.
My youth has slumbered within my bones, my greenest hours faded;
I come again into the breast of the sky to shed my earthly skin.

Sky, my fragile youth and my beginning,
the Mother of my light-spirit whose breathing lights the vault;
I drink you in as my lips swallow your starry breast,
your thighs beneath me open to receive the sun of my green loins.
May my image grow within you as a star of undying aura,
born again in the east on your horizon of ascending light;
this light that glitters by day in the company of ancient swallows,
reaching up into the turquoise veil with their lapis wings.

Earth, my heady passions and my forthcoming,
the Father of my flesh and bones whose breathing fills the sky;
I drink your seed in as my lips swallow your inundation,
your skin on my skin bestowing me your savor.
May my flesh and bones be received by your hallows
to charge the cavern of beginnings;
where our Ancestors meet to receive their light-spirits
after travels through the memory of time.
Let me travel with them and hear their memories,
to become a swallow of the sky and air;
these qualities that know their beginning, but never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

I go in carrying my peace on sun-clad bones;
he knows his names, his youth, his beginning;
all that he has from his Father of his many forms.
He has drunk from his Mother’s sky of many lifetimes,
reckoning his past and his many transgressions.
But fear is unknown to him when he passes over
into the house of the midnight sky;
for he has tasted the waters of our beginning,
where all that once was has received the untarnished flood.
His reflection is the green and gold of the untouched Gods,
these qualities knowing their beginning, never their end;
and the Gods drink their image when it comes back to them.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa