How To Find The Words (and when to stop)
For National Poetry Month
1.
You start with a seed.
No — start with an egg.
It’s juicier, more fragile.
So you start with an egg.
It’s still warm from its mother.
Put it down tenderly.
Listen to the muffled
peeping inside.
Watch it quake, see
that tiny beak
emerge — misshapen
egg tooth pipping itself
a breathing hole.
Then wait.
These things take time.
It’s resting.
Absorbing the yoke.
It’s a big task,
being born.
Slowly
the hole
grows large,
then one last tap
the lid falls off —
the creature
emerges, drenched,
dinosaur like,
trembling and
searching for warmth.
You cup your hands around
for the heat.
Don’t touch it yet.
Let it dry.
2.
So there it is. Your
fresh hatched chick. All
yellow fuzz and quivering life.
Sit back, close your eyes.
Listen to its first cheep
like you’d listen to
the words of Shakespeare
or Keats — or somewhat
more contemporary —
Hughes or Plath or
Gallagher or Carver.
Meaning is fragile.
You can wrestle the angel,
be thrown in the dust,
clothes charred,
clutching hard —
left nothing but a handful
of burnt black feathers,
unrecognisable.
3.
But back to that chick.
You want to pick it up, feel
that brave new life
beating
close to your heart.
My mother once told me
if the down goes down
the chick would die.
It happened to me once. For days I cried,
drowning in guilt.
4.
My hold tightens;
I feel its life
slip away —
I’ll put it down.
For now.
© Zarina Dara 2018. All Rights Reserved
