Poem by Sadiqullah Khan
Splendour of the Eye
Eye could never find more splendour
Lips as eloquent as holding
Back an emotion of a sea of silence –
Nonetheless, – the artist lends
The black line to white lime
Which is austere and smells mud –
They didn’t live forever or may
Not rise. They are dead forever.
Yet they sculptered themselves to
Rock or wished an afterlife suited to
The kings of valley or priests
To nobility. Not for commonality
Who burried themselves alive.
Indeed they lived their part
And are now like winds whirled
In desert or found in tombs –
That is the remnant of certain past
Preserved as awe and the mystique
To engrip you soul and heart
In fear and loss which humans inherit.
– On watching ancient Egyptian art in a BBC documentary