A Deeper Egypt – a poem by Jeffrey Essmann

A Deeper Egypt

Some deeper Egypt lingers yet in me,
Some soft internal slavery whose chains
Are taut yet barely chafe, are velvety,
In fact, and cause my soul such subtle pains
I barely reckon my captivity.

It’s not so much a matter that my soul
Yearns for its former gods or to supplant
The One Who Is. The truth, though, on the whole,
Is that when I was solely supplicant
I still felt somehow I was in control.

But He Who strongly saves is strongly willed,
And I’m unused to love without constraint.
I sense the fear in covenants fulfilled
And wonder by the lintel’s bloody paint
If there might still be pyramids to build…

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, America Magazine, Pensive Journal, Forma Journal, and The Society of Classical Poets. He is a certified catechist with the Archdiocese of New York, a Benedictine oblate of St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, NJ, and editor of The Catholic Poetry Room.