Surprise find on a hike

[This entry appears to have been worked a bit before it hit the journal. By the language (suddenly florid, then normal -- jerky) I think I may have been trying to bring it up to a "real" writing piece but hadn't finished]

July 23:

Walking down a rocky forest service road, mostly stream, anomaly caught the side of my eye. Down in the red cushion of fir needles and small ferns. Not believing the image, I walked back to the spot and confirmed -- a perfect sky-blue egg; fallen from some wind-thrashed limb above. It sat, cold, amongst the flat ground you find under conifers.

We stood around it, like the crowd at the manger, full of awe and indecision. We cruched, hugging our knees.

Too perfect this thing. A beautiful, unreal blue -- a little elliptical globe sitting like a king in the leaves, or a planet.

Not believing what I did, I watched as my hand reached across my gaze and picked it up -- as though it were made of blown gauze, and my pulse would be strong enough to crush it.

Heavy, like a stone. And so blue. A white & green smear of birdshit confirmed its terrestrial origin, relieving both of us, I'm sure. Like turquoise, it sat in my crisscrossed palm. It picked up my heat, cooling the center of my hand.

Its appearance had thrown us into Dream. It was too powerful -- our brains couldn't avoid mythology and hologram. We stood, transparent as thought, held by its powerful gravity.

Briefly, I thought I should take it back with me, pierce it -- blow it out & send it off to my grandfather, who has a penchant for these things. He would look it over carefully, through glasses & over pipestem -- wander to a shelf, pulling carefully a book. After he identified the species, making sure in his head it was correct for my bioregion & elevation and season, he would place it on a shelf, above his stereo, next to the tintypes of my great grandmothers, and and old-yellowed lamp globe. It would sit, dusty & pristine, amongst fossils and rocks, in my grandfather's house.

The weight in my hand, the smell of the trees, and the density of the wet earth under my bootsoles returned; and I decided to put it down.

My companion and I continued our cold, grey walk -- returing to find it, solid, on top of the gravel pile where I had hoped it would be easy to spot.

We returned it to its cold nest of wet needles, with a roof of fern boughs.

Later on, we returned and took pictures of it where it lay, and in each other's hand -- even that felt tenuously incorrect.

We laid it carefully back, wishing it to a roving skunk's teeth, or bobcat.

----- [to be continuted]