Hedy Habra

 

Meditations Over The Eye of Horus

 

In Ancient Egypt, the Eye of Horus came to be known as

Wadjet, the most powerful of protective amulets made of gold,

silver, lapis, wood, porcelain and carnelian. The Wadjet’s six parts

represented the shattering of Horus’ eye and was associated with

one of the six senses as a specific fraction.

 

5. Taste

 

Dhuq! Dhuqi! We were always summoned to

taste! A word as a gateway to a tapestry of flavors we had to

experience bite by bite. Spices can divide or separate. My

nonna’s shadow still wheels its way into my kitchen to supervise

the right seasoning! Her final decree was punctuated by an

orgasmic Ya omri. . . My life. . ., head tilted, eyes disappearing

under eyelids the way the diva Umm Kulthum swooned while

she wailed her desperate Enta omri! You are my life! Many

years later our pharmacology professor would face us with

the same enraptured look after writing double-bind formulae

on the board. Smoothing powders and unguents with pestle

and mortars seemed a natural extension of grinding toasted

coriander and cumin seeds with garlic and herbs. We learned

to recognize dozens of white medicinal powders: we’d rub a

small amount between thumb and index finger to sense its

particle size, squeeze its sliding crystals or feel its impalpable

fineness. But only one lick alerted the papillae.

 

Ancestral gestures

engraved over temple walls

etched inside our skin

 

 

This haibun is a fragment from "Meditations Over The Eye of Horus"

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)

Or Aren’t Words Worthless, Oftentimes Said & Forgotten, Written & Erased?

            After Beyond Words by Liz Collins 

                                                           

We used newspapers to clean window panes when

I was growing up. With sheets crumpled up in balls

moistened with vinegar, we’d rub in circles till words

lost their lives, broken down into letters, ink fading

into erasures, signs reforming anew.

 

And what of the ritual cleaning and storing Persian

carpets for the long summers? The last step involved

lining them with newspapers soaked in turpentine.

 

We would kneel, two or three of us, depending

upon the size of the rug, and start rolling tightly,

in the shape of a log, like a bras de Venus cake,

rolling inch by inch, to avoid any trace of air

inviting moths to invade spaces, bite their way

 

into the handwoven wool. And did we ever glance

at any buried headlines, or worry about words receding, 

their dye drowning within the meaning once conveyed?

 

And what of the fate of pages torn out of books,

never opened or abandoned volumes, forbidden

novels, put on the Index, or fallen into oblivion?

At school, the nuns would only lend us books

bearing an imprimatur seal or a nihil obstat. 

 

The day my dad died they took me to my cousins’ house.

I saw a book cover: a hairy-chested man in a striped pajama

bottom holding a redhead woman in a matching top.

 

That hardcover stained my mind with a taste of sin.

We never knew we were growing up in a cage,

until words themselves rebelled, burst out of rolled

rugs, discarded paper balls, recycling bins,

became flying doves unlocking doors.

 

Follow their flight through crystal clear windows,

so clean they’d vanish into thin air,

 

see them rest over flying carpets, refusing to fade

or be forgotten, stronger wings morphing

 

into fins, reaching out with their music to heights,

valleys and rivers where people thirst for the sound of lette

 

 

First published by Axon: Creative Explorations

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023)