high cliff

the mummy had been
drifting for weeks
first along an open plateau
away from the pan of buldu
and then gradually into valleys
then deep unceasing trees
whose silence or murmur
was gradually misted by the dance
of the hiss wet turnings before the roar
of the high cliff at the falls
where the rock rode upward at the edges
to conceal the place of the going over

the mummy in herald stripe
was all blue yellow and diagonal
its face a robotic mask
alive with the lip song of the once
and no longer future being
the ghost part capture
a slim shadow of the code
peeled off and
would say its own name
in a death delirium
its last words recorded
and stretched out into a thin
yet effervescing line
its volition guide toward the journey

and the image
as if all-powerful
and yet hollow as a bell
all image an oracle
of the spread and spreading image
and its sound pierced through with translation
the meaning mummy hugs the surface of the stream
and makes only a letter as it turns
a single ettur
and its eyes seem more lovely
as their frosted lenses automatically detach
and hover at the crook
of the everlasting lands
where all pass
en masse