Title: Electric Eels
Artist: Joanne de Longchamps
Date: 1979
Medium: Paper collage on board
Credit Line: Collection of the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art

Item description:

Egg,

you are the magic container,
oval pod of promises,
seed-case for secrets,
for bird, snake, tortoise, fish;
citizens of air,
earth's indwellers,
water travelers -- and a child
sleeps first inside a silk-skin shell --
that human who raises you to god-head,
whose fables tell:

Brahma burst forth from an egg of gold.
The great god Ra is shining
resplendent in your circling orb.
Tien locked China's Adam
safe inside an egg and tossed him
from heaven to hatch in primal seas.

Exalted, called the vault of space
rounding over seven spheres --
and wings that grow within you
bring festivals of flight,
a feather-bridge from earth to sky.

Egg, you are
breakfast and beatitude,
breakable, eternal.

Joanna de Longchamps
March '79