The Tao of Hard-boiled Eggs
by Gary Charles Wilkens
| Poem: | The Nature of Water | |
| Poet: | Smith Browne | |
| Published in: | Obsessed With Pipework, #28 |
Smith Browne's The Nature of Water begins with empathy for a hard-boiled egg: the speaker claims she knows the feelings of the egg alone in water, the first of the poem's many sharp but tender turns of phrase.
An egg is naturally a symbol of vulnerability and potential, and we feel the creeping realization of the waste which awaits both: it conceives of lifetimes unlived / the inevitability of lifetimes unlived. What is the oddly structured game it plays? It is to exist in a world where bounty, beauty and boldness are birthed only to boil, where a trillion chemical reactions take place so someone can have a quick breakfast. It is gratuitous suffering in a universe which hints at answers but never quite delivers them: rolling back and forth, as if someone wanted kindly/ to explain the meaning of the words/ Inevitable and Sorry for your loss.
Browne's imagery of the egg afloat evokes the thought of a balding monk wanting to question, to tug God's sleeve and make a mild complaint, to voice quiet reservations, slight worries, but who ultimately answers silence with silence, convinced it is really spiritually stronger to shut up and take it.The egg accepts/ that its prospects are unarguable/and very, very small. Such an attitude calls forth both sympathy and frustration: No! No, little egg, rage, rage against the boiling of the water! You were made to be a.....well, chicken. To be plucked, chopped and fried.
Oh, well. Perhaps the wisdom of a bobbing egg is best: accept the nature of water (God?) with calm resolve.They may get your yolk but they can't get your eggy soul.Through its soft language and central image, Browne's poem hatches a sense of resignation and acceptance.
Gary Wilkens studies creative writing at Sam Houston State University
in Huntsville, Texas. His poems have appeared in The Texas Review,
The Anemone Sidecar, The Adirondack Review, The Cortland Review, Hinge,
The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Snakeskin,
Pemmican,
Underground Window, and PrairiePoetry. http://www.gcwilkens.com.