April, 2024

On a humid, dark, cloudy summer night,
Temperature still in the high seventies,
Streetlights not working,
I step from my car as a huge fluttering bug
Flies smack into my lips.
I do not see it.
I know it is not a moth or mosquito,
More a furry flying beetle of some sort.
And just as I do not see it, I do not hear it.
Rather I feel its flutter and the soft thud
As it crashes straight into the very center of my closed mouth,
Smack in the middle of my pressed lips.
I blow and brush it away quickly,
Feeling its dimensions only slightly.
I respond in surprise and shock,
But without fear or disgust.
I know at once that I have been sweetly touched
Not assaulted or attacked.
And though my rational mind recognizes it as probability expressed
A happenstance of fate,
A random intersection of invertebrate and human,
I am aware instantly of having been kissed by a beautiful stranger,
A princess living in the body of a bug,
The light but explicit tap tap tap of god’s finger
Calling forth my attention

“Hey you,” the bug commands with her furry kiss,
“Wake up, we’re in this together, man.
Live life fully aware
And appreciative of me,
Fly around in the muggy dark night
Kissing strangers with me
Let’s be in each other’s company as much as we can bear.”

I dream that night I stand beside the rushing waters
Of a mountain stream which calls to me,
Bids me enter,
To be pulled along in the frightening, exciting, inexorable flow to the sea.
I imagine being in the water.
I imagine being water.
I am a furry bug
I kiss your lips.

There are many reasons
To travel to Egypt,
One of which is to inquire of the Sphinx,
”What should a man do?”
The instructions you are given specify only that you inquire
And make note of what you next perceive.
How you inquire is up to you.
 
1.

Approaching from the south
On your magnificent white steed
The sphinx faces east
To greet the sun, to thank the Nile
As it has every day
For over 5000 years
Over a million sunrises.
A lucky man may see one
A persistent man many
The same sun for 100 generations
Rises up and exposes the sphinx.

 
The steed and the man approach as close as possible
Close enough to see her damaged nose
Her whiskers twitching in the wind from the south
She can smell you before she sees you,
The man with the question.
It is noisy, you can hear the adjacent city
Horns, sirens, the sounds of other horses, camels, asses, humans, flies
You sit your mount hoping for the moment.
The constant Sahara stops whistling and biting your face
Then as if bidden, for no apparent reason,
The wind subsides, and the city stands still.

So you reach out to her, for the iron is hot
And say out loud, loud enough for a deaf sphinx to hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And then you listen.
The high shriek of a hunting bird comes first
Then the song of many birds
Had they always been singing and you just
Didn’t hear them?
Or had their song just arisen?
You may count twenty thousand new suns
And still you will not know
Although it is now a little clearer what a man should do.
 
2.

Approaching from the north
On foot, as close as you can
Close enough to see her damaged nose
The sound of a muezzin calling
Signals the time to stop and be still.
A chorus of male voices joins in the chanting
Then another caller calls
And more chanters respond
All vowels emerging from the swollen gut of the soiled city
Saccharine, sacred
It is all too real
You must sit down in wonder
Awaiting quiet
Aware of the ancient cemetery
The clatter of camel hooves
The voices of your kin
When all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason,
But as you knew it must,
The hoof beats cease
The chanting ceases
The wagon wheels stop turning, stop grinding
The wind subsides,
And the city is still.
So you say out loud, loud enough so the sphinx may hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And the voice of a young boy in a silenced carriage
Says,”Baba.  Baba.”
 
Did you hear that, Baba?
You may count your twenty thousand new suns
And still you cannot know
Although it is now a little clearer
what a man should do.