Monday 13 May 2013

Nephthys



“I am the question that cannot be answered.
I am the lover that cannot be lost.
Still small are the gifts of my servant the soldier.
Time is my offspring.
Pray what is my name?

My name it is death
Cannot you see?
All life must end in me.”     Extracted from The Incredible String Band’s song.


Song, invoking the Kite Goddess    by Nick Owen

Hark, hark, I hear you calling me.
Come, Come, come to me.
Hark, Hark, I hear you calling me.
Come, come, come.

Together we’ll fly on the mountains above
Come, come, come to me
And together we’ll guard all the valleys below.

Won’t you come,
Come to me.

Nephthys

Dig down to the depths where death dwells
Dig for deeper dreams
Where my dead darling dances
As she never danced before

Glide
Silently stalking the banks of silver streams
Selecting
Swooping
Shredding
Returning earthly things
To heaven

I seek your eye of Horus
I seek protective wings
Wrap me into darkness
Take me down to dreams

Thirty years and more
Half a lifetime
I have sought you out
Since first I began to identify the dead.

Here you are again
You swoop
Hover
Twist
And swoop again

Talons stretch forward
Bringing golden grief
Tail spread
Forked this way, that

Wings spread wider than wide
Feathers red and white and black
Dark tips twitching in the breeze

A twist
A shimmy
A landing on the prey
Death comes
Life goes away

Sixty years and more since
I was torn
From your house of life
And death
You
Pulling me through

Oh, Guardian of the dead
Protector of the grieving ones
Who live
A merely mortal life
Still
Or wriggling

Take me to eternity
Make me one with Osiris

Beyond this world of strife
In everlasting life

© Nick Owen


A tad about the Goddess
Nephthys was known as the goddess of mourning. She was also one of the nine gods. She was the goddess of night, rivers, sleep, nature and mourning. When Nephthys became the goddess of mourning she also became a friend and protecter of the dead. Nephthys was important in Ancient Egyptian culture because Egyptians considered the afterlife to be very important. She always stood at the head of the coffin that would take the dead to the underworld with outspread wings. Nephthys explained the nether world for the Ancient Egyptians by protecting and caring for the dead. When people died their ''Ba'' would be tested by 40 gods. Many of the gods met up with Nephthys. This is a small list of gods and goddesses.

She manifests as a kite!


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2 comments:

  1. A stunning use of voice to rupture the white noise of a public space and open up the poetic and chthonic spaces in your work today! Thanks s o much for carrying on with these -- real celebrations. Taken from an e-mail from Vahni Capildeo

    Thank you Vahni

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  2. Perfect..... comment made by a visitor to the poetry tour by a lady from Brazil. Thank you. I wish I could recall all the other things you said.

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