The Dust of Elephantine

Khnum the creator 

Still waits at his wheel

Heket still inhales deeply

Preparing her breath of life

The clay figures no longer created

There is no need for their services in 

Today’s world.

Or so it seems

The clay has dried here now

At the temple of Elephantine.

Forgotten and turned to dust

Ruins and rubble

Who now feeds the God in remembrance

Who brings the fresh wine or beer

The offerings of dates and honey.

Like time itself

Khnum is everywhere in this space.

His whispers still hang in the Nile Wind

In all directions

This place, now abandoned except 

By diggers and seekers

Sherds of pottery and granite

The discards of a broken humanity.

Hoping to be pieced back togetherWaiting to be reborn

Nobody wants the pottery

Chunks of earth, left in the sand and sunlight

Black slip, red clay

Malachite inlays in

Simple etchings

Grooves and lips

Sharps and flats

Dozens of centuries tossed aside

Discarded melodies

From a long forgotten song.

What is exciting about daily life, after all?

Perhaps a mummified monkey or 

Hathor headed amulet, or dare I say

Something that glimmers of gold.

To me, the treasure lies in

A broken sherd bearing still

The thumbprint of the man or woman

Who shaped it

A billion breaths ago.

Oh Khnum, you understand

Here, blessed by the waters of Hapi

Here where the tears of Isis were collected

Here in the layers of mud and blood and bone

Here the sherds, like souls

Sandwiched between layers of earth and straw

Here I whisper your name to the wind

Here I offer dates and honey

Here amidst the broken ways of man

Scattered and ignored

we are elementals

Made of earth, air, fire and water

Like the pottery, broken and disregarded

Forgotten to function

Will our bones, too, be forgotten to time.

A new day begins to form

Khnum, enticed, sits at his wheel

With his left foot he pushes the tired kickstone

The wheel begins to turn

Slowly at first, and then…

He gathers the earth and water

The clay forms cells that grow and multiply

Forged with fire.

Lungs ready to be filled with Heket’s breath.

With a farewell and a prayer,

I leave the temple, and then the island

Returning to the water 

Floating silently through the Aswan

My eye catches sight of a sheep

On a steep rocky shore

He stops a moment and gazes at me

Before he continues his climb.

Khnum is pleased