QotD: Oscillate my metallic sonatas with your plan for the Panama canal:

A man, a plan, a canal, panama…
Backwards and forwards, forwards and back: subtle mockery of Bacchus swinging to and fro in the pines. Who is this man who dares to harness nature? Poseidon roars his wrath: would these puny diggers halve their prayers?

Yellow fever. They die like rats, writhing in the heat.
Malaria. They die like flies.
Still they persist.

Dionysus throws a party. Wine flows. Greeks and Romans, lend me your ears. More wine… Poseidon rises, drunk with power, links his strength with his host: the Mediterranean gleams Bordeaux, a sea of blood. Loki comes from the north, the cold gods in his wake.

Let the americans dig with their antillian friends, let them sweat, let them invite europeans to their fight against nature. Tithe them in their hospitals, bleed them thrice more. Let them halve their prayers in death.

Anubis, Horus and Isis lead their fellows not so much to wine, but to the orgiastic rigors of religion. Krishna, Yasoda…
Buddhabodhiprabhavasita, Citipati…
Chou Wang, Han Xiang-zi…
Egres, Kalma…
O-Wata-Tsumi, Kishimojin…
Hachiman, Amaterasu…
Namita, Lature Dano…
Donbittir, Ordog…
Hinkon, Picvu’cin… They come, trailing colleagues, and the hills reverberate with godly thrashings, drunken songs, orgiastic rituals…think, think…

A small beetle, metallic green and brown. Fly with your brothers, small one. Let your hordes glitter in the sun. Green abounds in the new world…time to leave the old. The armored messengers eat their way in from the sea, denuding the Atlantic coast, moving steadily inland. Still the men dig, they pour cement, they build islands and cities on their diggings. Their locks are complete. The Alexandre La Valley crane tiptoes through, none the wiser. The party is not long in coming. SS Ancon leads the parade.

The commerce gods rise, a red sea slides back to blue. Forgotten, the old gods slip away; the Titans smirk.

It’s not over. Wait, wait… The mask of Bacchus hangs by a thread, swinging in the gentle breeze. Time turns, turns… turns bittersweet…