A hen has a calendar.
On it, is a list of the days
she will lay an egg.

This is the reason she lives for.
Each Nebula of Yolk is a star.
A star for every day marked
on her calendar.

Oh, there’s the crow of the rooster,
too. He is so optimistic. And the bits
of insect and leaf he points out.
Looky here, he says.
But that is secondary to the egg,
in the hen’s mind.

Each egg is marked on her calendar
because there is nothing in her life
more important. That is why
they are packaged so carefully­—
first the albumen, a special concoction
of mystery and yum, and then
the swift and fragile production
of the hard-cover book filled
with the knowledge of being.
She knows each egg means a safe landing
for another star of the universe
as it lands on this earth.

That is why each day at dawn,
or perhaps later in the afternoon,
she is beyond elation as a warm
three-dimensional oval plops
neatly and clean onto the straw
beneath her tail feathers.

Be-gawk! Amen!
And why the heck not?