reached out to place in hers
the entire world 'round as a ball,
small as a hazelnut'. Just so one day
of infant life remembered
her mother might have given
into her two cupped palms
a new laid egg, warm from the hen;
just so her brother,
risked to her solemn joy,
his delicate treasure,
a sparrow's egg from the hedgerow.
What can this be? the eye of her understanding marveled.
God for a moment in our history
placed in that five-fingered
human nest
the macrocosmic egg, sublime paradox,
brown hazelnut of All that Is -
made, and belov'd, and preserved.
As still, waking each day within
our microcosm, we find it, and ourselves.
___________________
I first read this poem during a summer program at Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire after my sophomore year of high school. I carried it with me to college and through my 20s... then my yellowed and tattered and stained paper disappeared in one move or another from some apartment to another. But I've never stopped searching for it. Finally, I found it tonight. #grateful
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