The Name They Chiseled Off the Wall (Hatshepsut)"

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You were the daughter
of a pharaoh
and the wife of a pharaoh
and the regent
for a pharaoh
who was still a child
and none of those positions
were the one
you intended to keep —
you kept the throne
and the throne
had never held a woman
who did not plan
to give it back
You put on the false beard,
the double crown,
the full regalia
of a king
because the language
did not have a word
for a woman
doing what you were doing
so you wore
the word they had
and made it fit

[Verse 2]
Deir el-Bahri —
you built a temple
into the face of a cliff
that smelled like cut limestone
and the warm chalk dust
of a construction site
that took fifteen years
and three thousand workers
and the patience
of a woman
who understood
that buildings
outlast arguments
and arguments
were the only weapon
your stepson
would have
when you were gone
The terraced colonnades
rose from the desert floor
like a sentence
that starts quiet
and ends with the whole valley
listening
and the valley
is still listening
thirty-four centuries
after the last column
was set

[Chorus]
You sent an expedition
to Punt —
five ships
down the Red Sea
to the land of incense
and they came back
carrying myrrh trees
with the roots
wrapped in burlap
and the roots survived
because you had ordered
the roots kept alive
not the branches —
the branches
are what the voyage
shows the court
but the roots
are what the garden
shows the century
You planted them
at Deir el-Bahri
and the stumps
are still there
and the stumps
are the oldest
evidence of transplanting
on the planet
which means
your garden
is a category
of first

[Verse 3]
Thutmose III
waited —
he waited
until you were dead
and then he sent workers
to every temple,
every obelisk,
every cartouche
that held your name
and they chiseled it off
the way a man
removes a page
from a book
he cannot rewrite
but refuses
to let anyone else read
The removal
took decades
which means
erasing you
required almost
as much labor
as building you
and the effort
is its own
kind of monument:
a pharaoh
who needed that many workers
to unmake a woman
who only needed herself
to make a king

[Outro]
The name came back —
archaeologists
found the cartouches
underneath the replacements
because the chisel
removes the surface
but the surface
is not where names live —
names live
in the depth
of the cut
and the cut
was made
by workers
who carved your name
the first time
with the weight
of someone
who meant it
and the replacement
was carved
with the weight
of someone
who was only following orders
and the stone
knew the difference
and held
the deeper name
the way a wall
holds the nail hole
after the portrait
has been removed:
as proof
that something
worth hanging
was here