Egg Timer

Oct 3 2018

An egg timer

in the shape of an egg.

How elegant is this,

a thing that says what it is

in a simple glance;

no ornamentation,

no need to explain

what it really meant to say.

Like that impeccable sentence

so complete in itself

you wish you could claim as your own;

its essence honed

jagged edges rounded-off.

If only poems

could be so clear,

saying what they mean

without pretension, or extra words.

Without anyone getting

between us, and them.

As irreducible as an egg;

self-contained

and unassuming.

Where function and form

are in perfect accord.

A random egg

you feel compelled to nest

in your warm dry hand,

rolling, fingering

testing its shell;

its smooth surface, brown or chalk,

its lightly pebbled touch.

Small red numbers

circle its waist

along an evenly ruled line.

Where it turns, with a twist

and a soft whirrr of clicks

ratcheting only one way.

Time

begins and ends

in this modest egg

at rest on the kitchen shelf.

So suited to its role.

So true to itself.

In the almost hallucinogenic opening sequence of The Shape of Water, Sally Hawkins boils eggs. She is shown giving an elegantly shaped little egg-timer a little twist. This object struck me as so utterly perfect that a poem leapt to mind. Even though it was very late and I was very hungry for my cooling dinner, I immediately stopped the PVR and sat down to write. I was in love with that little egg-timer, and had to somehow explain and document its irresistible appeal. This poem (many, many versions later!) is the result. I can't imagine an object more perfect, something so true to itself and its role that it absolutely cannot be improved upon.

I admit, an very odd thing indeed to have taken from a celebrated movie. Nevertheless, a found poem is not to be questioned. One is grateful whenever they materialize.

The Shape of Water, by the way, is a movie I probably would have given a pass if it hadn't won the Academy Award. I appreciated the quality of light and lingering pace that gave it a compelling sense of magic realism (if you're able to surrender to that). I liked the evocation of its era (although, as usual, my mind's eye automatically searched out the few subtle anachronisms the continuity team failed to notice, an unwelcome distraction that seems to be my own personal bugaboo in any movie I watch). I could see how the many cinematic references would have appealed to the voters of the Academy. And it's clear that its earnest message of the triumph of the different and disadvantaged and excluded (a mute orphan, a black cleaner, a lonely gay man in the early 1960s) fit the usual high-minded criteria for Best Picture. But some of the violence seemed gratuitous; the characters as written were cardboard thin, if not a little cartoonish; and the movie tended toward melodrama, sorely lacking in the highly naturalistic realism I prefer. Having said that, Michael Shannon and Sally Hawkins were brilliant, Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins well worth watching. And the music was wonderful: beautiful pieces from the era of the Great American Songbook, which is the music I most love yet never ever hear in modern movies. I know that a soundtrack only truly succeeds when you don't actually “hear” it; but in this case, it was intrusive to just the right degree. Nevertheless, if you aren't a fan of science fiction or fantasy or noble themes presented with little subtlety, best to give it a pass.