Poems by
Sharmila Ray

The Beautiful One

a poem by Sharmila Ray

Nefertiti the beautiful one,
Nefertiti spoke
From mounds of sand and
Heaps of loose stone
Her body has become heavy
And centuries of sickness has invaded her.
Her name was
What lifted Akenaton’s heart.
Now under a boundless sky
The pulsating passion
Lie locked in a granite hollow
And her youth, beauty, power
All edited in collected writings.
She misses the barges up the Nile
And a call of a heron
In the high wind.
She urges the passerby to
Delve into her
To decrease the leagues
Between her and
Violet immensity.
Her breasts fall forward
Her lungs swelled out
With air
She stretches out from the
Abyss of deep time.
And time looses meaning.
The air, the very air
That you and I breathe
Nefertiti breathed
Unchanged, unaltered through centuries.