——–After several predynastic jars in the Egyptian collection at the Met
In the time before time artists fill in
the blanks with grain abstractions Hatch marks
and lattices graze the plain River grasses
thresh the earth Grids of inky linen
flax and wheat chevrons of riverine geometries
bind the bodies with the tides In this equanimity
of elements nothing but warps and wefts
ford the passage from bank to bank a prayer
for easier comings and goings
a more leisurely journey after
You know you might be buried within your house or
you might just move on unmolested but no one on the vessel plummets
over a cataract No one person leads the pack No one even mentions it
between the ungulates What you eat is where you sleep
Your roof your hoof that’s between you and the Great Sand Sea
What is it to occupy a negative space
To be ceremonialized
in Nile clay or marl clay
red clay or alluvial clay
To be extrapolated
kilned into bisque
To be scribed
in red-polished ware black-topped ware
white cross-lined ware black incised ware
late ware or rough ware to be stuffed and packed with straw
To be left behind in receding water To be trapped
in the folds of a rock To be nautiloid
crinoid echinoid To lie dead in the sand
and freeze your shadow in the split
On the predynastic jar with boat processions and animals
familiars and non-familiars are traveling
together Fan palms and
crocodile and hippopotamus
ibex and ostrich or flamingo maybe
families betrothed by mud
To get from there to here takes time
not rulers these creatures tell us
in their fabric of dust Only ones of many
tessellating the arc of the myth of our creation
with a motif of being a repeat pattern
life after life woven to square
with this eternity
Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer is a poet, installation artist, and author of the poetry collections Well Waiting Room (Fordham) and Cleavemark (Boaat) as well as the children’s book The Cloud Lasso (Penny Candy).
Image: Engin Akyurt. Unsplash, 2020.
