Christmas with Kings
                                Valley of the Kings, Egypt, December 25, 1999

Here, where kings have come to rest, we are
The day’s first tourists, sun just a white glare.
Robed men perch in the rocks above the valley,
Watchdogs or worse, as we enter an open tomb.

Cold walls have lost most of their paint, the flecks
Of sky flaked off now mingling with the sand.
The ceiling’s yellow stars in the blue sky
Almost nothing, as if obscured by smoke.

The way to heaven was through the earth, the kings
All knew. Surrounded by gifts, wrapped in cloth,
Wanting safe passage in their human way
From the old dispensation into the new.

Christ knew it too; would wrap himself in skin
And hide himself inside himself. And only
After burial could he be raised.
The sun through the shaft is seen the whole way back.

I’m hoping for others when we reach the top,
Expecting terror from the watchers: thieves,
Shepherds, angels, depending on the story
This turns out to be. They’ve disappeared.

Which leaves us in doubt and sleeved in dust
From kicked-up wind. More tourists move in and out
Of open tombs. Whatever made these gods
Human is over the peaks and untraceable,

Yet leaves its mark indelibly with us,
Messenger, message, folding into one.
Like the dust we are on a windstorm lifted,
That which is sky is now dirt, and the dirt sky.