I wrote this poem for the Toledo Museum of Art poetry contest this year. I didn’t win, so my status as an amateur poet is intact. This poem is a love poem beyond the grave, mourning a lost lover.
This is an ekphratic poem, a poem based on a work of art. This is the work of art, of 10 selected by the museum, that I chose to write about:
Here is the Toledo Museum of Art’s description:
Egypt, New Kingdom, Dynasty 18 (about 1479–1298 BCE), Pair of Hand Wands, wood with inlaid wood decoration
Pairs of clappers in the form of human arms and hands were popular musical instruments. They were tied together and played by shaking them so that they clacked together. Also called clap sticks or hand wands, clappers were often tomb gifts because their form and the noise they made were believed to drive away harmful spirits in this life and the next. This pair’s elongated, graceful lines and elegant craftsmanship are typical of New Kingdom Egyptian art.
I’d Give My Write Arm for the Sound of You
What wood I give
To remedy a life without
A body
Of music
That sweet song of your being
Now in that cryptic dwelling
Of eternity’s embrace
Fare well two arms
Given awe that is sow right
And that only left
Rattled
Only hoping to transcend
That perplexing realm
Of one hand clapping
And halve the tomb of our life
Our soul escape
In treating us to be
An instrument
Of ceaseless song
Oh happy day
To be more than
Lyric without note
