Having checked the Egyptian Book of the Dead out of the library by Amy Gerstler

Having checked the Egyptian Book of the Dead out of the library

by Amy Gerstler

I'm seized by a form of remorse. Is this the best

choice of reading for when I can't sleep, a text

crammed with fears of being eaten by animals,

of decapitation, of getting lost on the path

from demise to eternal life? I'll skip over

anxious jokes I'd planned to make here,

like, Ha-ha, Ancients, good luck finding your esoteric

heaven with no GPS. They painted their gods,

a jackal and falcon-headed crew, facing sideways,

as if in the midst of a line dance, tugging

reluctant mortals along by the wrist. Who isn't

horrified to rot after death, abandoned body

stinking and swelling, worms partying hard

in your corpse? In glyphs of hippopotamus

and ibis, the Ancients anticipated harms

a dead body or loosed soul was prey to,

and by naming terrors my era finds

too revolting to mention, they sought

inoculation from dangers enumerated.

They also listed perks they aimed

to maintain in the afterlife, like the pleasures

of eating and defecation. When granted

eternal life, they believed, the sun again

warms your face. The soul after death

is free to fly where it likes, bathe in the Milky

Way, take the shapes of its desires, and shimmer

as it did while it lived, shining like a beaten tin

in the right light, when seen by the right eyes.

This poem is from Amy Gerstler's most recent book, 2025's Is This My Final Form?, published by Penguin. I read it for the 2025 Sealey Challenge.

As with most of the poems I discuss here, there is a lot to talk about! First, the topic of the poem itself; I always love coming across a poem that makes me realize, "I have never read a poem about this before!" It is exciting.

The first sentence is also intriguing. "I'm seized by a form of remorse." Remorse seems to be in line with a book about death--is the speaker grieving someone? Nope, not at all. She is kind of freaking hersolf out! We get a few examples of some of the gory things she is reading about, and then a bit of self-deprecating humor (more poets need this). A description of hieroglyphics follows.

Then another question, directed in all its gory-ness, at us.

Who isn't

horrified to rot after death, abandoned body

stinking and swelling, worms partying hard

in your corpse?

If the speaker has to deal with these images, so do we. And if we are being squeamish, she takes us to task; we are of "my era [who] finds [death-related things] too revolting to mention."

But then the speaker assures us it is not all gruesome--the ancient Egyptians also discussed the pleasures of the afterlife, namely eating, defecating, and being warmed by the sun. Whee!

Those 3 things may not make you less hesitant about dying, but the speaker tells us the Book of the Dead is sure there are more positives waiting. Flight, shape-shifting, and shimmering are all waiting for us on the other side as well.

But the poet ends by returning to life here on earth. That shimmering our souls will be able to do? It is the same kind of shining that we do when alive, here on earth, "when seen by the right eyes."

So this poem which gives us history, humor, some wonderful descriptions and some wonderfully gory images--all about death--ends with a little bit of human love, a reminder that we all shine to those who love us. It is a beautiful way to end this very imaginative poem, a poem which zig-zagged its way through an ancient text and provided us with some highlights. The poem starts with remorse and ends with love--quite a great trick!