Wild Bird Eggs

 

  

Wild Bird Eggs

green egg shell fragments lying 
on top of dried dirt heaps
green weeds hide them
my careful touch breaks them
like shattered ceramic pottery shards
born bird had flown 
late morning made me drowsy
staggering home
I place the fragments
next to the white ones with brown

an uncle with a room just for wild bird eggs
in his stone house in Scotland 
a cabinet with varnished wooden drawers 
filled with eggs in partitioned sections 
laying neatly on tufts of white cotton 
like precious opals and aquamarines
carefully emptied of their embryos 
visits to Norwegian fjords to find specimens 
different sizes very small to large
laying quiet and cool
inside the little confines coffins
collected

the speckled eggs of wild birds
arbitrary patternings
ground of beige with brown
ground of light green with tan
ground of gentle blue with sepia 
touches of white
camouflaging
 
the wind blows with a ferocity
how do they stay in the nest
couldn’t I make the painting look like this
some essence
something to be understood 
in the abstractions
the specklings make
a beauty hidden in the pattern
the fragility of beauty yet you can find it

 

Deborah Kerner 

 

Deborah Kerner is a poet and painter living in Ojai, California. Her poems have recently appeared in Bluepepper, Mad Swirl and Rabid Oak.