Poem: "The Enigmatic Egg in the Hidden Land"

This is the freebie for the March crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from alexseanchai. It also fills the "Nobody Knows" square in my 2-1-17 (Love Songs) card for the Valentines Bingo fest.


"The Enigmatic Egg in the Hidden Land"


George Dowling went to Egypt
expecting to dig up statues of dogs
and instead dug up a god.

To be sure, Anubis was
wearing the statue of a dog
when George dug him up,
but he was still a god.

Anubis yawned and stretched
and said, "That was a nice little nap,"

and George dropped his shovel on his foot.

"This is impossible," George said.
"I am an atheist. Gods don't exist.
"Nobody knows that better than me."

"Learn to rise up out of the enigmatic egg
in the hidden land," Anubis advised him,
then trotted away into the desert.

George wanted to wave it all away
as a symptom of sunstroke, but
Anubis remained stubbornly visible
and verbose on the survey video.

Grudgingly, George put it up
for peer review as part of his report
on the progress of the dig.

Plenty of people tried
to replicate his results, but
Anubis remained just out of reach
and nobody was able to confirm
or disprove the existence of deities

until Catherine Carmichael
came running out of the dunes
swearing that a statue of a cat

had turned into Bastet.

* * *

Notes:

"Learn to rise up out of the enigmatic egg in the hidden land."
-- Egyptian proverb

In case you're curious, that's a recommendation for spiritual enlightenment.  It refers to the cosmic egg popular in many world religions, and a nickname for Egypt, home of many gods.  I don't know if anyone has mentioned that in modern times, though.

The ancient Egyptians made many statues of dogs and cats.

Read "A Tide of Grief and Melancholy" by Dialecticdreamer

 dialecticdreamer has posted "A Tide of Grief and Melancholy" which deals with Steel having a nightmare.  Heavy reading, but it's fascinating stuff, and it has sparked some good conversations about safety vs. consent during an emergency. 

Northern Flicker

 Today I saw a northern flicker on the ground under the hopper feeder.  We used to have a lot of these.  They have since been largely replaced by red-bellied woodpeckers.  Read more about the woodpeckers of Illinois.

Monday Yardening

Today we hiked around the yard to make a list of projects for the tree guys to take care of.

*goflopnow* 

Half-Price Sale in Schrodinger's Heroes

The half-price sale for Schrodinger's Heroes will run March 20-26.  It features quantum science fiction about saving the world from alternate dimensions.  Prices run from $25 to $41.

( Buy some poetry! )

Half-Price Sale in Schrodinger's Heroes

 The half-price sale is up on LiveJournal if you want to shop for Schrodinger's Heroes.

Monday Update 3-20-17

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Sunday Yardening
The Personhood of Rivers
Saturday Yardening
Read "Play the Pipes, Beat the Drum" by Siliconshaman
Poem: "Spooked"
Read "What Real Courage Is"
2017 Rose & Bay Awards
Wednesday Yardening

The crowdfunding Creative Jam went well this weekend.

This week there is a half-price sale in Schrodinger's Heroes.


Poetry in Microfunding:
"A Hope and a Promise" belongs to Polychrome Heroics and has 2 new verses.  Aidan and Saraphina interact talk with a new teacher.  "Essential for Human Survival" belongs to Polychrome Heroics: Cassandra and has 4 new verses.  Groundhog and Cassandra learn about a craft class.


Weather has been cool, but was warmer today.  Recently at the birdfeeder I have seen a flock of doves, lots of grackles, some sparrows, a pair of cardinals, and a northern flicker.  The mourning dove nest by the kitchen window has two white eggs.  Currently blooming: snowdrops, forsythia, miniature Dutch iris, crocus, daffodils, tulips, apricots, plum.