One very sunny day an egg shall envelop my shadow. An eagle shall be overhead, perhaps a bit to the east or west, lowering into the updraft, on the hunt & returning to the nest satisfied.
A robin swooping into shade swallows a delicately tangled necklace of humming insects. A heron drapes her wing upon a sloping stone & swallows magnetic frogs who prophesize.
A hen clucking like a sticky typewriter key repeats the sound of curvilinear incantations, unceasing, between echoes of breath, sleep & a sudden kerfuffle.
Photo S. McCabe
Egg, tell me how we shall begin.
Photo S. McCabe
Egg, tell me how we shall accomplish our mission.
Photo S. McCabe
One very sunny day an egg enveloped my shadow. I was minding my own business. I felt my blood in the sun-blood of my ancestors.
I felt them go ashore. I felt them carve and chisel enveloped by shadows. I felt them carry fire. I felt them carry a weighted promise.
Photo S. McCabe
Egg, tell me who & what, alchemically one very sunny day, you shall become in traveling a distant path to yourself: An eagle, a fluent ballerina, or a sun-flecked tidal wave. An astronaut, cosmonaut or vimani pilot. A Spanish painter rising like cream in early Modernism.
Or the hen caught up in a sudden kerfuffle. Or the heron draping elegant ink-like feathers. Or the barrel-chested north wind whiplashing trees. An opera singer who resounds triumphantly or a trumpeter swan harkening. A blue parakeet, nodding his fuzzy head, asleep & dreaming.
Or a sea turtle diving in the dark. The Ice Age thawing, a solar flare consuming or a fairy-tale princess personifying an archetype. A sphinx-like barn owl in the rafters, a barn swallow exiting a hole, or an amber bale of hay. A cosmic chant vibrating hearts. Fire-flame in a bowl. In a deep cauldron.
The language of trees. Dotted zigzags on grey stone carved with a chisel. A dotted triple spiral carved with a chisel. A feather wafting into a mist. A deer-god in a yoga position. The full moon fully incandescent. An escapee escaping hollow & corrupt civilizational madness. A druid-like hero, positioned in the now, opening portals to before. I promise I will tell nobody.
Photo S. McCabe
Egg, tell me where & when we shall meet again.
Photo S. McCabe
One very sunny day an egg enveloped my shadow & all shadows.
Photo S. McCabe
One very sunny day an egg enveloped salt & the volatile, shadows of the mighty & ancient world, honey & vinegar, shadows of this world in the light of this world, goats hanging in a market & geraniums in shade, clandestine meetings, the animated shadows we imagine spilling forward, the final page of a novel steeped in symbolism, shadows of a future dread we pledge to circumvent, sacrificing & shattering our personal selves to preserve, as guardians, the original innocent nourishment of joy & play, for all children & childhood, unfolding like the age-old unseen.
For the original brilliant sun. For the mechanics and gears of illumination, opposite to opaque – yet weighted with antiquity. Like an ancient accordion book, one very sunny day, unfolding & evolving.
Egg, show me those secret markings you made on the trees.
I don’t know how this egg came to be (unfortunately) on the sidewalk but the encounter stayed with me. This posting developed over a couple of weeks. First I put up ‘scene of the crime’ photographs along with the first draft of a poem. Then I edited the poem, with changes to the text visible in almost ‘real time.’ Then I created digital (Photoshop) manipulations of the photos using colour. Then it dawned on me to check a symbol dictionary for meanings associated with this entity and shape.
In The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images I read: ‘The egg is the mysterious ‘center’ around which unconscious energies move in spiral-like evolutions, gradually bringing the vital substance to light…’ If the egg had not been on the sidewalk (with yolk & egg white spilled out the cracked shell & spread across the concrete) I doubt I would have thought of an egg at that moment. Thus, my imagination turned synchronicity into images & text. One might also say sound. The egg, there and then in loss, became a poetic vessel for hope & empathy.
Mythical Zeus said I am certain this is impossible.
The authorities said beyond any shadow of a doubt.
Mythical Zeus said I have no memory of being here.
The authorities said you have been here thousands of times.
Mythical Zeus, in flux like a wavery obsidian shadow, said I am certain this is impossible.
The authorities said we constantly retrieve your fingerprints, alongside other evidence.
Mythical Zeus said perhaps I know this location by another name.
The authorities said possibly you have forgotten, an easy mistake to make.
Mythical Zeus said why do you – how strange – you would speak to me of memory.
The authorities said possibly you have have been deceived.
Mythical Zeus said why do you – how strange – I am not aware of mistakes or deception.
The authorities said we can be of great assistance with this – with you – with clearing your name…
Mythical Zeus said I am on a search-party mission to rename & reactivate thought-forms previously declared abandoned & lost. And I am not lost.
The authorities, concurring, said we wish to save you from your illness.
Mythical Zeus said I am not aware of any illness.
The authorities, concurring, said please sign the form giving consent.
Mythical Zeus said what will be done based on my signature if I sign.
The authorities said whatever we deem consequently necessary to deactivatethe current situation.
Mythical Zeus took a deep breath, diving like Johnny Weissmuller into the multidimensional ocean, on his search-party mission to realign & reassign thought-forms previously declared abandoned & lost. Alone, he did not feel abandoned.
The last line of the poem places the images in context. A figure in motion as if underwater in a multidimensional ocean. A figure suspended like an angel above a medieval landscape, swimming through the air.
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