Sunday December 1, 2019
I was happy to see the news program 60 minutes highlight the town of Lalibela in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia. The town is the site of eleven Rock-Hewn churches and is a pilgrimage site for Coptic Christians.
I visited Ethiopia and Egypt in 2004. I walked through the churches which are connected through a series of passages and trenches. Then I traveled to Axum to see the ruins of the Palace of the Queen of Sheba, or as Ethiopians call her the Queen of Makeba.
This is a poem I wrote during my travels to Ethiopia and Egypt.
Sheba is her name in the East
Who leaves houses in ruins? Their collapse settles into the bone.
Fractures appear in vessels exposing nerves which cast Karmic uncertainty from past lives onward.
My walk is grave along the skeleton of Makeba’s ancient abode.
My presence disturbs her memory.
Separated by thousands of years, we share a common fate.
Life lived as an uncoupled woman of African Descent.
I am discouraged from loving, I wonder how she would counsel me
Cured by the fantasy of companionship, I close my eyes and imagine my almond
skin nestled against white ceremonial fabric—- highlighting the contrast in tones and reading the Kebra
Negast.
I lay the ancient text down and move towards the bathing pool.
I see the reflection of my nipples against her Soloman’s chest.
Sheba, Soloman and I become entwined.
Forming our own trinity of sorts,
we are locked in tantric shapes that shift, circle, and rumble.
Jerking loose each one’s wetness that unites like the river---and flows towards the sea.