My Tomb Is On This Shore

My tomb is on this shore,
in the place where the earth is swallowed by the sky;
His nakedness is covered by Her imperishable stars
for the eyes of swallows ascending the western vault.
And my nakedness?
His loins are awakened by the flowers of the sky;
beaten gold and ruddy copper flash as His girdle,
growing from a garden the hands of the Gods have planted;
cornflower and lotus unfurling their bright petals,
lighting a lamp before him
in the darkness of the desert’s edge.

I call on the Lord of the Rivers
to meet me by the water’s mouth;
Sebek Who is in the Water,
the Great Crocodile beautiful of forms;
who tears the sky with His double plumes,
appearing in the east as the Lord of Bakhu-Mountain.
This mountain is my destination, the sky rent above its peak;
and it is this crocodile of flashing white teeth
who makes a gap for my wings to enter.

My tomb is on this shore,
at the junction between the earth and sky;
He beholds the entourage of jabirus dancing
in their pilgrimage through that torn and glimmering veil.
And my pilgrimage?
His dance is the ascension of lamps in heaven’s lap,
whose yawning places him at the gate of a stellar home;
the tireless stars of generations hailing,
making of their song a guide for the wings of souls.
I answer when my ears of twilight are opened,
and my mouth breathes the breath the crocodile has woven.

I call on that Crocodile great of terror
to meet me by the desert’s mouth;
Sebek Who is Ruler of the Desert Edge,
whose teeth and claws reveal the flashing of the sun;
He coming on the dark waters to predict light,
crossing waterways as the sky flees His shadow.
These waterways are my destination, this Shadow my guide;
and I am brought up by the One Who Flies to the Skies,
who makes the starry vault a road for my wings.

My tomb is on this shore
in the place where the earth gives way to the sky;
His nakedness is revealed as the pathway of stars
for the eyes of herons rising on the eastern ladder.
And my nakedness?
His brow is crowned by the crest of the sky;
striking flame and sun’s eye are His mantle,
shooting forth from a horizon the Gods have opened;
thigh of bull and crocodile’s tail unveil their power,
lighting a lamp before Him
in the darkness of the sky’s edge.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (38): Meeting At the Gates

There is a meeting at the gates
where I walk in the company of the rain;
the sky is written upon his body
as he falls to the thirsty earth below;
my earth that drinks him deeply,
that finds consolation in his lofty messages;
my earth that needs the kisses
of that place behind the veil;
my earth that gathers all the sky sends,
to hold it for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I dance in the company of the desert;
the wind is written upon his body
as he shifts across his barren kingdom;
my kingdom of the spirit lifted
above the flesh and bones he knows;
my kingdom twined with cliff and stone,
opening for the tips of these etheric wings;
my kingdom of unceasing air
that holds the spaces for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I dress in the company of the sun;
pure gold is written upon his body
as he travels through the shadowy sky below;
my sky that spreads her body for him,
that receives the tokens of life he gives;
my sky that wears the messages
of those stars above the veil;
my sky that reads the wandering bodies,
and holds their maps for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I fly in the company of swallows;
messages of the sky are written upon their bodies
as they travel to and fro between the worlds;
my worlds of earth and air
between which the Gods are known;
my worlds within this skin and bones,
growing from my soil like a tree;
my worlds that keep my secret deeds
until they fly forth for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I awake in the company of jabirus;
the Gods are written upon their wings
as they break the silence of the twilight hour;
my hour of shattering the dusky veil
rising between my corpse and soul;
my hour of hearing the message of stars,
calling through the doors of that secret world;
my hour of kindling the fire within my bones
as it lights my way for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I make love in the company of a heron;
my heart is written upon his gleaming breast
as he rises above me to open my eyes;
my eyes that know the horizons of the sky
between which the sun dances his seasons;
my eyes that see the spirits who know me,
riding high on their western peak;
my eyes that foretell the beating of my heart
that holds the rhythm for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I swim in the company of a sacred lotus;
my future is written upon his sky-blue petals
as he opens in the waters to herald the dawn;
my dawn wearing the embrace of myrrh
as he spreads through the arms of his sky;
my dawn wearing a mantle of fine gold,
predicting midday fire above his watery veil;
my dawn that finds its hidden light shining
beyond the shadows for my meeting at the gates.

There is a meeting at the gates
where I pass through in the company of the Gods;
my soul is written upon their faces of the sky
as they rise through the worlds on their ladder;
my ladder that breaks the darkness of the vault
as it receives the wings of those sacred spirits;
my ladder that stretches between the worlds,
lifting my name high above my worldly bones;
my ladder that speaks the names of those Gods
that hold my life for my meeting at the gates.

All text copyright © 2016 Ptahmassu Nofra-Uaa

Sacred Verses (37): May the Gods Open A Door

I awake to a life hidden
behind the world’s dusky veil;
she finds me as my mother,
rising up between her loins of celestial metal.
What finds me is our cavern of beginnings,
where swim the wings of souls;
what finds me is our lake in the nether sky,
where fly the shadows charged by heaven’s breast.
May the Gods open a door
for the passage of my solar wings;
may the Gods open a door
for the breath my mother sings.

My eyes tread the courses of the stars
untiring in their house of north;
in this direction I am taken by them
to the region where horizons gaze;
to behold our bodies glittering
with skins of gold and precious stone.
I am open in the direction of the ever-rising sun,
with brows of lapis lazuli curving on heaven’s crown.
May the Gods open the sky
for my flesh of stellar design;
may the Gods open the sky
for these shining wings of mine.

It is from the soil I swell with malachite presence,
my naked feet known to the sacral ground below;
he knows my seed of green
from which his mighty sycamore has grown;
he knows my heady scent of myrrh
from which his power is sewn.
I now behold green jasper, inhale breath of myrrh;
knowing the seeds of tomorrow, and all the seeds that were.
May the Gods open the earth
for my feet of stone and seed;
may the Gods open the earth
for these feet to take their lead.

I have come on voice of sky,
upon celestial breath;
he recounts the moment of my birth;
his open arms take my death;
he has given his hallows beneath ancient trees,
whose branches foretell my years with seeing leaves.
I come to receive a mantle of stone,
alighting as a swallow in the boughs I call home.
May the Gods open a field
for my wings as they grow;
May the Gods open a field
for my enchantments that flow.

Now I come to a river of luminous spirit
spreading the loins of the eastern horizon.
She is a flower in the river of the sky,
opening her wet petals for my loins as they fly;
she is a mother of gleaming turquoise breast,
holding the sun tightly in her woven gold nest.
I am now wet as the day I was born,
reared on milk of sky, fresh on the breast of morning.
May the Gods open a lotus
for my face of youthful power;
may the Gods open a lotus
for my mirror of the dawning hour.

I came from the cleft of my mother,
from the seed my father spilled;
hers is the sacred cavern
from manhood of earth being filled.
His are the eyes that see me spring
at sacred daybreak on his bank;
hers are the lips the sun hears sing
when I ascend her gilded flank.
May the Gods open a body
for my wings to take their flight;
may the Gods open a body
for my dawn and star by night.

My skin recalls his bones when morning comes,
and when night falls he hears the summons of his blood;
these the fragile gifts of earth,
the sacral river and her mud.
I swim with the sky as the east is born,
and by the west I travel as his daylight is shorn.
The feet that move me are of earth, of tree and holy peak;
the arms that keep me are of sky, the mansion earth’s eyes seek.
May the Gods open a soul
for these bones to open their way;
may the Gods open a soul
for my coming forth by day.

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

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