Cleopatra’s Needle 9.5.23

 


Cleopatra’s Needle


It stands on the Embankment

above the flowing waters of the Thames,

a reminder of time’s ever flowing stream.  


Three thousand five hundred years ago

it’s granite was quarried from Aswan

by the waters of the Nile.


Erected by Pharoah at Heliopolis, 

moved to homage Caesar at Alexandria

Cleopatra’s Needle then bit the dust!


Preserved by sand it rose again

through British enterprise and carried by sea 

came to preside over the Thames.


Cleopatra’s Needle points heavenwards 

lifting the soul as it has for millennia 

inviting an eternal perspective.


John Twisleton  9 May 2033

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