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Horus
1.
City birdwatchers bunch,
binocular-eyed, at the rim
of the model boat basin to watch
a reluctant red-tail fledge
from a stick nest over the arch
of a Fifth Avenue high-rise;
at first, the eyas* tries a tenuous flutter,
then he dives and soars
into a feathered crossbow.
Son of Osiris and Isis,
the falcon-faced god of light's
effigy crowns the obelisk
in Central Park,
first stood in Heliopolis
in 1600 BC and given by Egypt
to the City of New York.
At home I rip
open mail with a silver horus-headed blade
bought in a Cairo Casbah
and read in a book about
Ramesses' coronation,
and the astonishment
of the assembled court,
when a falcon dove out of the sun
to land on the prince's shoulder!
2.
The hieroglyph translation
on the obelisk reads:
The Horus, Strong-Bull...
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt
Chosen-of-Ra the Golden Horus
mighty-in-years-and-great
of victories, Beloved of Amen
who came forth from the womb
to receive the crowns of the Two Lands.
On a clear storm-scrubbed
morning after a run, I stretch
under the obelisk watching
Horus incarnate rip
the guts from a plump
city pigeon atop
the Met's roof-garden pavilion,
screaming the sheer whistle
annunciation
of the god's
return.
* a nesting hawk
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