Joy at Easter

There is joy on earth and in heaven—joy unimaginable.  In every blade of grass rises the strength of the sun.  In every mortal shines the star of immortality.  All things demand adoration and respect.  In each child an old man lies coughing and dying, and in old men fresh children are singing.  Though dead perhaps a million years, each day I sail with the sun.  On my lips the taste of frankincense hangs.  The soles of my feet are perfumed with myrrh.  Above the fields of malachite golden hawks fly and, in gold upon golden tablets, the gods write.  Let men sing loudly and cast incense in the fire.  Let ducks be roasted.  In this world the sun rises.  The sky is unbound.  Rains fall to take our thirst.  We breathe beneath heaven and upon the earth, in the presence of gods and goddesses.

From “In the Talons of the Hawk” in Awakening Osiris—The Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated by Normandi Ellis.