Bird's Egg

I’d never seen inside a bird’s nest,
Young as I was.
The miniature, sky-blue speckled eggs.
Gemstones.

I took one,
Cradled in hand
As I climbed carefully down,
Leaving three.

Beautiful as it was,
Illuminated in the sun of an early spring morning,
I could not contain my curiosity
And opened the egg,
Cracking and peeling away sticky flakes of shell
Until the gelatinous mass inside was revealed.

A featherless baby bird,
Curled in embryonic sleep,
Never to awaken,
For I had thwarted the will of nature,
I had become a careless and clumsy god,
Aborting so innocent a thing as a baby bird,
And I recoiled at what I’d done.


~ Russ Allison Loar
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