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The Tombs of Kha and Mirit: A Poem

(Egyptian, c. 1500 BCE, now in the Turin Museum)
i
Everything you would need
and perhaps more:
a game of senet, for two players,
with its perfect drawer;
four slender walking sticks, Mirit’s beauty box,
her combs and pins,
eye-shadow containers.
Thirty-four undergarments
in a wooden chest,
a braided wig;
Vases filled with fish, fowl, meat,
bread and cumin seeds;
a two-handed jar, inscribed
“all good and useful things.”
Your right hand on my left arm
as we walk, in step.
Two garlands of flowers,
now dried.
ii
For me, outside in the square, a bicerín:
thick whipped cream, espresso underneath,
dark chocolate under that;
a miniature glass of mineral water;
three tiny biscuits, one in the shape of a heart,
to die for.
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Harry Eyres has become one of the most eloquent advocates of the worldwide Slow movement. Having worked for leading newspapers and magazines as a theatre critic, wine writer and poetry editor, in 2004 he created the Slow Lane column in FT Weekend. Slow Lane (which ran until 2015) proposed a pause for thoughtful enjoyment of the often uncostly and uncostable pleasures and values which make life worth living. He has published a volume of poetry, Hotel Eliseo (Hearing Eye): Vernon Scannell praised it in the Sunday Telegraph as “an enjoyable collection of consistent accomplishment,” describing Eyres as “a mature poet…who has forged a style, pared down, cleanly chiselled, and…admirably suited to his purposes.” He gives regular poetry readings at various venues in London including The Poetry Café. Eyres is also the author of The Beginner’s Guide to Plato’s The Republic (Hodder & Stoughton), the memoir Horace and Me: Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet (Bloomsbury and Farrar, Straus and Giroux: short-listed for the PEN/Ackerley Prize in 2014), and several books on wine. From 2012-5 he was a Senior Fellow at the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna: out of this work came Seeing Our Planet Whole: A Cultural and Ethical View of Earth Observation (Springer). He lives in London, writes about wine (he is wine columnist for Country Life magazine, and a columnist for The World of Fine Wine), culture and politics (for The New Statesman) and enjoys playing tennis and the piano.

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