Selected Work

          by Simon Peter Eggertsen










          Felucca at Maadi


          Along the Nile corniche,
          the royal purple of the jacaranda
          and the flame red of the acacia
          flake the late May paths,
          swirl and fluff about the ankles
          of the early evening strollers,
          parting like little sparrows
          fluttering to seed or grain--
          none trodden underfoot.

          Along the river, a felucca
          moves north, accompanied
          by the tinning music of the
          black boxes on the shore,
          a large, white ficus leaf
          feathering before the west-leaning
          wind as it spreads flat
          across the water.

          The mast pole straightens,
          lifts the creme canvas triangle,
          aiming it at the cotton-threaded
          clouds above as they perceive
          them selves to a loose Arabic script.
          Read from the right, like the texts
          inside the whirling illuminations once
          seen on the tattered limits of a Koran's
          pages at Rumi's green tomb in Konya,
          they seem to say

          "And who will explain this steep path to you?"

          The bland wind billows
          the sail edge into a left-handed
          crescent, a cloth trace of the
          waxing early moon above.
          On coming about, the angleline wavers,
          the wind stretches it nearly
          to its ruffled edges, lufts and teases
          the charity of its blue line border.

          It whaps like a sheet hung to stop a
          Utah canyon breeze, after noon,
          when it reverses on itself,
          valley bound along the river,
          drawn out by the rising heat
          of the desert land below.

          The diminishing Akhenaten sun
          gilds a path on the river,
          as gold thin as the leaf
          on the masks of Tututkhamen.
          It lays the way to sail straight to
          the three steeples at Giza,
          where Cheop's barge awaits,
          earth-bound, to companion us
          for the trip into the after.

          The sail slides the white curve-skated
          wood beneath it, straightens itself
          for the westering sun,
          hurrying to join with the gold before
          the sun lifts the path heaven-ward,
          erases our chance as its light moves up
          to paint the clouds a purple-pink.

          No need to come about again this eve,
          the angles of Ra right themselves on the river.
          We can keep on sailing straight
          on together for an eternity.

          There is a chance now for another life.Ê

          Simon Peter Eggertsen was born in Kansas, raised in Utah, and schooled in Virginia and England. His degrees are in literature, language (BYU), and law (Virginia and Queens' College, Cambridge). He says, "My life has been lived in alliteration!" He has been working and teaching in the field of international public health, the latter at Harvard and Boston University.

          Poems have been published, or will be, in Dialogue, Salt River Review, The Daily Herald, Wordbridge, The Catholic News (Trinidad) and The Writers Post.Ê One of his poems was awarded 1st Prize for Poetry at the Whidbey Island Writer's Conference (WA) in 2008, and another set was listed as a semi-finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry (Nimrod International, 2008).Ê(April 2009)