Harvest

This photograph was taken on a walk not far from San Qing Mountain (a historic Taoist site in Jiangxi Province, located in southeastern China). I think the tiny blue eggs are Robin eggs; I couldn't help but be drawn to them - so small and precious, lying in a plastic colander, still in the very nest in which they were laid, now forever frozen, never to hatch. The woman selling cucumbers and peppers gave them to me for some reason; my Chinese still rudimentary, I could only repeat, "Thank you, thank you", though what I really felt most was a confused, vacuous sadness rather than gratitude. I ended up traveling with the nest for weeks, packing it carefully in paper inside of a bamboo hat like some strange spoils. Perhaps I had some ridiculous sense that these eggs were precious and alive and were just waiting for the opportune moment and place to hatch. Eventually, one by one, all the eggs got little bruises, but otherwise survived the journey. By the time they arrived in the USA, they were practically hollow - strangely light for the concentrated potential they once housed, now just air surrounded by a thin dry membrane and a beautiful turquoise shell with tiny fissures that could be hidden if the eggs were placed just so.