She gathers eggs

She gathers eggs

The robin’s song opens wide the sun’s eyes.

Alone she walks her own familiar fields;

The dawn is radiant on the hedges

Where her Rhode Island Reds have laid brown eggs;

One rust clocker glares with vexed orange eyes;

The order of the seasons seems intact;

The strawberries on the lane will redden;

The apples and pears have weeks to ripen,

Fall off and yield the clay their inner seeds;

She knows that she will return to the ground

That holds their seeds and creation's riddle;

Time spools life’s thread around the tree of death;

But while the hens lay, she will gather eggs;

The miracle of her routine ripples

The blue and gold-hemmed table cloth of sky.