Eggs
The rain left the daffodils bedraggled. The deer ate the plump buds of the tulips.
On the soggy ground, a broken promise of robin song: the blue shell of an egg.
I can reproduce the miracle of yeast each week. Comforting familiar moves.
In a world out of control, I sift flour, measure sugar, slowly separate eggs.
Some thoughts must be handled carefully as if they might crack under your probing.
Set them aside where they’re undisturbed. No pressure. They’re fragile like blown eggs.
This year, my mind is not on greening. I have not prepared for Easter, have not cut
the hazel branches. I can never find the box with my grandmother’s wooden eggs.
Dip the stylus in molten beeswax and draw invisible symbols on the shell.
Spells, or silent cries for help. Only after dyeing, they will appear on the egg.
Recipe for mom’s Easter bread: divide the dough into three strands, braid them.
If you cannot get the ends to join seamlessly, hide the flaw under a dyed egg.
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Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany and now lives in Rolla, Missouri where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T and hikes the Ozarks. She is the author of Porous Land, The Eden of Perhaps, and A Coracle for Dreams, all published by Spartan Press. Most recently, she has been collaborating with eight other poets on the book Wild Muse: Ozarks Nature Poetry (Cornerpost Press, December 2022.) Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines; you can read some of them on her website agnesvojta.com.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 