14 Thousand Eggs Poem by RIC BASTASA

now i am that chicken
that lays all those fourteen thousand eggs,

this small chicken
has tiny feathers
it cannot fly away but

it cannot lay its butt upon all these
fourteen thousand eggs

it is sad,
these fourteen thousand eggs
shall not hatch

how i wish i can hear the songs of
fourteen thousand chicks

what can their tiny voices be
to God? to those higher skies?

what cant they be?
shall they be angelic like those seraphims and cherubmims?
or shall they be the sounds of wailing
of grieving widows
of dissatisfied workers
of disappointed humanity

of men and women loveless upon the tracks of life
of children abandoned
of marriages in shackles and shattering

soon i shall retrace
what i have said
open the pages of this journal
and find out again
what life is,
if i have lived in
vain.