October Day

Through the window of the art gallery cafe,

the slow October day unwinds, the sky grey

muslin, opaque to the eye, but for the God Ra,

Lord of all energy, working behind the scenes,

One can imagine, as I do, with the dictionary

of Egyptian Civilization, on the table petrified,

a flotilla of ships, instead of the Hans Christian

Andersen Swans tied up for winter, sailing past,

a barque with trapezoidal sail, carrying the Pharaoh

to his final destination, and under his mummified

form, beneath all the bandages, his lips pursed

in an ambered response; then I think, to turn

from what is at hand, to what can never be,

How power crumbles into subject of archaeology,

How lovers fumble to become the object of psychology,

How in laboured curse, we are together, two skiffs

sailing on the horizon, fishing in the shadow of fame

For the significance to what is life without magnificence

toiling in the field, a thousand million times, but two puffs

of wind, uncover our forms, and buries the ruler under sand

For by chance, not by work, the dead will inherit history

Then the peasant farmer or fisherman, in the museums

ruling over the kings and queens, curated by attitude,

Now we are postmodern, through the window , he leafs

through the Kindle, and finds the papyrus in pixeled forms

There the Google books, for how long, archive the Name

Then, more come, and more, and perhaps by twist of beams

The relevance of the Pharaoh will dwindle into the same

as the dictator, and the dread, is that a Holocaust could be dust

so too the architect, and by some virus, all history could go dead

By irony, the server which bows to a scam or pyramid scheme

May release the plague that like the locust will devour all info

Such as the dear family album, the time you and I made love,

The time you did this or that, would as in Alexander's Library

Be erased by a flame, by some teenager feeling rather low

Now, I look to the Swans that carry the tourist, the souveneir

of their stay, and I wish away the thought of the lonely barque

making its way up the Nile, imagined, and replace it with a duck

which quite ridiculous, looks to me as if to suggest - do not Fear.