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

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

Ra Sent Me A Swallow

Ra sent me a horizon filling the east with light,
its luminous arms welcoming me as my cradle.
Newly born, I rise up to you O Mother Sky,
your body of gold encompassing my horizon.

Ra sent me a star ascending the eastern vault;
the west is unknown where my striking rays lead the sky.
I call the heavenly bodies to follow in my retinue;
my body of gold and turquoise possessing the light of millions.

Ra sent me a snake swimming the waters above,
his coils the passage of millions of years.
Encircling the abyss of yesterday and today,
he is the devourer whom the earth’s ages fear.

Ra sent me a crocodile to swallow the depths;
his malachite stride crossed years in a single bound.
I have become those jaws dreaded by the abyss,
my valiant bite holding the terror of the midday sun.

Ra sent me a mountain from the depths of the flood,
its peak of gold piercing the hallowed veil of the sky.
Rise O you mountain beyond the realm of wet shadow;
lend me the strength of your vast and enduring years!

Ra sent me a flood to carry me home;
her starry back rose as a shrine for the Elder Sun.
I carried his ba-soul in my unveiled arms;
his light became my succor while traversing unknown waters.

Ra sent me a swallow perched on sky’s edge,
his ruddy face welcoming the mirror of the sun.
Whose countenance shines back from the star-clad vault;
my own rising high to cut the air with golden wings.

Ra sent me a heron of rosy-gold splendor;
his wet feet pulled the ancient earth from its slumber.
Earth’s sleep shall not find me when heron becomes me;
our plumage of dappled light igniting the earth with turquoise.

Ra sent me a lotus from beneath the dusky flood,
its lapis petals kissing the sky-clad body of the sun.
Whose body so rises that it brightens dark horizons;
my visage of divine electrum from which creation blooms.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa