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Elizabeth Sigmund’s Followers (3)
Elizabeth Sigmund
Genre
* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
“Shep-en-Mut
The painted wooden face was known to me. She stood in the dusty museum sun, Painted eyes lengthened with kohl.
Azure, terra-cotta, white,
Emblazoned cartonnage.
The Isis wings, spread in care and love. Curving protective Neckbet and Nepthys. Beneath, the corticated skin,
Black bitumen. Eyeless, cracked and black, Dessicated viscera, wrapped apart.
Leaving child and husband, moving through satin bands of shadow, Singing in the ecstatic sun.
Feet hissing through the silken sand
She carried the Milk Jar and a Palm frond,
Worshipping and serving each day.
This lady was the songstress of Amun-Re,
Her songs curved upward in the great Temple of Thebes.
The stone beauty of the face of the God above her frailty
Gave her voice a scope of praise denied to our dessicated senses
When death stooped on her, claws and beak ripped. Then feathers lay outstretched in love.
Horus wings, Night Heron beak,
Having slain, now standing guard in fearful phalanx. Leaving the echo between the roof trees.
Her flesh must be pickled, cured with cinnamon and myrrh. The skull, frail as a blown egg,
Emptied of its convolute majesty,
Stuffed with delicate resinous rags.
When the sucking natron has had its meal
Her shell will taste the shriving sun and wind once more. Blow gently, shine kindly down, Amun-Re, on thy slave.
She shall be wrapped in fine linen
Layer on layer, and laced like a shoe.
The last we shall see in linen and plaster and paint. May her journey be safe through the dark tunnels May her soul sing in light before her God,
In soft peace. The holding wings enfold my friend.
Priestess of Thebes. Singer of Amun-Re Bearer of the little Milk Jar.”
― Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning
The painted wooden face was known to me. She stood in the dusty museum sun, Painted eyes lengthened with kohl.
Azure, terra-cotta, white,
Emblazoned cartonnage.
The Isis wings, spread in care and love. Curving protective Neckbet and Nepthys. Beneath, the corticated skin,
Black bitumen. Eyeless, cracked and black, Dessicated viscera, wrapped apart.
Leaving child and husband, moving through satin bands of shadow, Singing in the ecstatic sun.
Feet hissing through the silken sand
She carried the Milk Jar and a Palm frond,
Worshipping and serving each day.
This lady was the songstress of Amun-Re,
Her songs curved upward in the great Temple of Thebes.
The stone beauty of the face of the God above her frailty
Gave her voice a scope of praise denied to our dessicated senses
When death stooped on her, claws and beak ripped. Then feathers lay outstretched in love.
Horus wings, Night Heron beak,
Having slain, now standing guard in fearful phalanx. Leaving the echo between the roof trees.
Her flesh must be pickled, cured with cinnamon and myrrh. The skull, frail as a blown egg,
Emptied of its convolute majesty,
Stuffed with delicate resinous rags.
When the sucking natron has had its meal
Her shell will taste the shriving sun and wind once more. Blow gently, shine kindly down, Amun-Re, on thy slave.
She shall be wrapped in fine linen
Layer on layer, and laced like a shoe.
The last we shall see in linen and plaster and paint. May her journey be safe through the dark tunnels May her soul sing in light before her God,
In soft peace. The holding wings enfold my friend.
Priestess of Thebes. Singer of Amun-Re Bearer of the little Milk Jar.”
― Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year's Turning
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