Immaculate Egg
Jan 2 2017


I try to balance an egg, end-on.

I test its strength,
compressing its length
as far as I dare.

My fingertips gently rub.
The sure grip
of its fine matte surface,
densely cool
curve-on-curve.

I admire its elegant shell.
A marvel 
of minimalist design,
engineered by chance
the mathematics of survival.

In soft absorbent white
chalk, ivory, pearl.
And the heft, just right;
lightly tossed and eyed
like an expert guessing weight.

The complete food
in its neat practical package.
Which looks impervious, yet breathes. 
But how I wish its shell
were water-proof, air-tight;
an immaculate egg,
nestled snugly
in its hermetic dew-drop home.
As if purity existed.
As if all eggs were virginal
and perfect always white.

Dropped 
in a roiling boil
in a burst of scalding steam.
Then left to cool
and deftly thumped, crunched, thumbed.

Where, beneath its crackled shell
a gauzy slip of skin
resists, before it gives;
peeled, stripped, shucked.

A glistening egg, still warm
humdrumly uncovered.
Its congealed white, hardened yolk
touch of sulphur smell.



I’ve talked about microcosm and close observation:  how I love to write about very small things, about the diurnal and mundane and neglected. And also how I make a conscious effort to involve all the senses (especially smell, which I think gets short shrift), because I think poetry is more about sensation and emotion than it is about abstract thought and ideas. (I much prefer the essay for that.) 

In meditation, one exercise involves eating a raisin. Not absent-mindedly popping in a handful, but taking all the time in the world and  focusing every sense on a single raisin, experiencing its look and smell, its taste and texture. As I understand it, this is all about being present, mindful, in the moment; and in so doing, out of yourself. I quite dislike raisins and don’t meditate. But still, the concept greatly appeals! This poem is in that spirit. 

I’m not sure what led to it. All I know is I pictured an egg (a white one, even though my aesthetic preference is brown) and thought how perfect it was:  the perfect food, the perfect white, the perfect engineering for strength  and minimalism. So I played with it in my head, rolling it between my fingers, squeezing it end to end, tossing it lightly. I wanted to make the reader slow down, experience it fully and in all the senses. Except for the self-indulgent digression on this quixotic idea of purity, the poem goes nowhere and means nothing.  Yes, part way through, it seems headed toward some kind of profundity; but then circles back and ends in a bit of silliness.Which, for me, is exactly right! 

 I’m interested in this idea of purity, since it’s the rot at the core of much of both ideology and religion. And certainly racism, where throughout recent human history it’s gone hand in hand with whiteness.  As unlikely as it is that white supremacists/the alt-right/neo-Nazis and ISIS would have anything in common, this is it:  the notion of purity.  ...And  I guess “as if all eggs are virginal white”  is the answer to that age-old question:  yes, the egg came first!