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.
I swallowed so much ash a charcoal-grey forest grew in my aching belly.
Somebody standing in a boat said, ‘How did you get here?’
I followed a procession sounding chants & reflecting sunlight. Gold & cloth & wood embroidered &
dotted by the chalky wind fluttered evocative shadows. Preparations for industrial-age conflict trembled
upon the earth, in place, anchored in grievious position, growling, pushing emotional tremors
into the gusting easterly wind. The invincible wind curving & curvilinear shaped like an ocean swallows a
storm cloud. I shaped my raspberry destiny & toiled in ash. I climbed a swaying tower above & beyond
blood & mud. I knew nobody and nobody knew me. I swallowed so much ash a charcoal-grey forest grew
in my aching belly.
I walked down grey-brown streets at dawn seeing the innocents shrieking rage, vomiting ivory ghosts,
spices & musical genius on the sidewalk. Civilizational egregores & robed shadows possessed by animated
entities, riddled with animated entities, like raisin bread sticky with raisins, chew the bones of the
innocent. Perversely & theatrically
working their rubbery mouths around entire buildings & bridges, horses, games of chance & games
of sport. Grandiosely igniting wooden spoons, cameras, even termite colonies buried beneath ancient
settlements with the grinding friction of their well-worn teeth dusted with particles of shattered & baked
clay. I swallowed so much ash a charcoal-grey forest grew in my aching belly.
Dogs in obedient joy welp at the scent of hellhounds in chain collars on upper floors lapping at
overflowing overturned goblets. LIke a technicolour movie about Rome, in spine-tingling chaos,
fiery destruction, distressed crimson robes, abandoned fire departments & the final telephone dialing for
an emergency ambulance. Your gloves & hat, your embroidered boots & even your body worn by an
impersonator. Somebody in difficulty has taken your tin of aspirin. Somebody standing in a boat said
nothing.
Darkly the personification of this civilization, impersonating a previous heartbeat, sits on a stolen throne
missing a screw. Twisting the cork from a painted glass bottle retrieved in some primeval epic (or cave
in a distant land stripped of its artifacts) within one of the later chapters. As floodgates release
confusion; flooding day with a deepening pungent twilight (released within one of the later chapters), a
wind-roaring brilliance strikes into this Dark Age of facsimile with the flat edge of the Sword Of The Sun.
Wielded hypnotically, silently, within a whirling whorl, the whirring centre blindingly radiant, unseeable
without special sunglasses & revolving in the fury of a gold-plated prehistoric & fiery flame-winged
monstrosity, hallucinating incantations, hallucinating three-dimensions of whatsover is rare. Whatsover
incantatory. In Naples yellow. In geometric technicolour. In the eyesight of a sprite. In a double-feature
at the silent cinema. In scratched B&W. In poetry & prophecy. In wicker basketry. In green
depths of hollow reeds. In great depths of a swallows nest. In the chiaroscuro forest raining & rinsing.
To rinse & to rain. To make the motion of sifting. In grieving. In fractal mandalas & labyrinths. In forest
mushrooms dripping rain. In lullabies to the unseen. In lullabies to the always, always, always seen. In,
within, tumbling dance. In passion voluminous as the punctuating dragon-like war horn. In harvest-moon
ritualized incantations. In sifted snowy flour. In the cracked mirror. In deeply-lined cracked hands. In days
and hours. In dreamtime interruptus. In radiating steam. In radiating yellow-orange rays of the sun. In
translucent radiating orbs. In the flat edge of the Sword Of The Sun. In a bevelled edge polished
clockwise using a soft cloth.
TheAge of the Golden descends upon us like an upside down cauldron. We stagger in veneration,
beneath a charcoal-scented shadow we can almost taste, stumbling down a hillside in golden clouds,
irridescent gold imbued & perfumed with engraving, wispy yet real as a dragon, clinging to the corners
of our mouths, into a tattooed landscape of wind-tangled tasseled banners in geometric formations. In
symbology. I strip to my white underwear stiff with sweat. You will never again be swallowed. Never again
permeated with dark matter & stuffed into the mouth of ancient springs irrigating olive groves, apricot
orchards & the habitat of four-winged songbirds singing to you in your original name. Reeds whistle to
you in the depth of your golden name.
You will never again lose sunlight, as invisible as jet fuel, or whosoever sunlight in fine-grains of astral fire
serves in golden obedience, or whosoever sunlight in iconographic fiery rags serves in golden
obedience, or whosoever sunlight in raising & aiming mighty beams of energy serves in golden
obedience, or whosoever sunlight in billowing sediment crisscrossing eons serves in golden obedience.
Blessed be that celestial eye upon you.
Repeatedly. Repeatedly.Repeatedly.
Blessed be that celestial eye upon you.
You shall receive this day a gift beginning TheAge of the Golden. In animated cartoons, in
the box of breakfast cereal, in the Brueghelian mud & dust & rolling hillsides of War and Peace directed
by Sergei Fyodorovich Bondarchuk, in the battlefield veneration of the Virgin of Smolensk icon,
in a processional winding (groupings of figures flow like rivers), in chanted prayer, in mischief, in radio
silence, in the apple, in the oak, in Morse Code, in the Song of Amergin, you shall receive.
In the simplicity of heartbeats pounding, in the golden teardrops of this planet, in butterfly migrations, in
chalk-dust on your eyelid, in the casting out of invasive demons & entities, in frightened & exhausted
soldiers chanting music of the spheres with tears in their eyes, in the paper-thin skin of a snake, in this
impersonation of a civilization, you shall receive.
In Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky, in beams of light, in right angles softened by
coincidence, in reflective globules, in diagonal patternings, in wallpaper configurations permeated by
cascading cosmic dust, in eyesight, in the soft, swaddling clothing adorning your infancy, in digging with
a shovel, in fairytales, in noir, in carved stone spirals, in burial & planting, in perfuming air with original air,
in defeating the oppressor, in the discovery of zero, in perspiration & exhaustion, you shall receive.
In crimson berries pulped & stirred in a glass jar beneath sunlight, in the flooded courtyard, in a
songbird’s love for lily-of-the-valley, in swans washing feathered wings, in swans stirring the heavy air, in
overthrown (triple reversed) curses, in the illuminations of Merlin, in your mother’s laughter, in your
father’s final resting place, in their fingertips & heartbeats, in their breathing, you shall receive.
In choosing magic well you receive. In choosing well the coincidental & original magic. In blessings
beyond improbable synchronicity chosen. In overthrown curses. In power manifesting power. In chanting
the blessings of rainwater. In chanting the blessings of sobreity. In meat-hunters bringing to table. In fish-
hunters bringing to table. In honeyed drink, plum pie & roasted walnuts, in beginning
TheAge of the Golden.
Burlap curtains twist into sculptural forms, seen by the neighbour sworn to silence, in the
investigation of you into yourself, in secrecy & stilled breath when somebody is near,
in opening a wooden drawer, in towers of grain & memory, in bricks fallen from the low archway,
in mouthfuls of green vines & tiny flowers, in a forced march, in the shade beneath a dolmen, in the
centre of a sacred grove, in beginning
TheAge of the Golden.
In sleep & sleeplessness, in waking & wakefulness. In foolish pride. In tears. In realization you have
thrown so very much away. In all you have lost. In the movie of your life retold by witnesses.
In eating ash. In the bark of a tree. In the return of sacred lore. In the timeline of the liminal. In the wound
you heal with ash. In chanting, in celebration for drawing breath, in defeating the oppressor, in beginning
TheAge of the Golden.
Some information about things I mentioned in the poem:
War and Peace is a 1966–1967 Soviet film co-written and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s 1869 novel.
Concerning the Spiritual in Art is a book by Wassily Kandinsky, Russian painter and art theorist, published in 1910.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, born into a well known artistic family in 1564 (Belgium) was known for village & rustic scenes as well as religious images.
The Song of Amergin is said to have roots in the ancient world and to be the first poem in the Irish language spoken by Amergin as he stepped ashore.
I find the social realism + imagistic spiritual solace in this scene rather incredible.Concerning the Spiritual in Art: This 1922 abstract painting by Wassily Kandinsky titled Kleine Welten (Small Worlds) IV is on the (paper sleeve) cover of my hardcover copy.Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s colour pallette and spatial depictions of social realism.
(Old Irish Gaelic) Am gaeth i m-muir, Am tond trethan, Am fuaim mara, Am dam secht ndirend, Am séig i n-aill, Am dér gréne, Am cain lubai, Am torc ar gail, Am he i l-lind, Am loch i m-maig, Am brí a ndai, Am bri danae, Am bri i fodb fras feochtu, Am dé delbas do chind codnu, Cia on co tagair aesa éscai? Cia du i l-laig fuiniud gréne?
(English Translation) I am Wind on Sea, I am Wave on Land, I am Roar of Ocean, I am the Stag with Seven Tines, I am an Eagle on a Cliff, I am a Tear of the Sun, I am the Fairest Flower, I am the Rampaging Boar, I am the Swift Salmon, I am a Loch on the Plains, I am the Defiant Word, I am the Skill of Art, I am the Spear, Battle Hardened. I am the god, who puts Fire in the Head. Who but I knows the Cycles of the Moon? Who but I know the place where the Sun Sleeps?
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