Existential Egg, Wondering Poem by Ananta Madhavan

Existential Egg, Wondering



Authentic to the shell, the brittle egg
Remonstrates to its yolk companion:
'Our kind is frangible. You must not store
The ground of being in your yellow fudge.'


Yolk-true declares, 'Don't be too sure; our friend
The Egg-white claims to be the most genuine
Of existential eggs. I sometimes think
I must be schizophrenic. Don't you, too? '


'Not so, ' opines the subtlest egg of all.
'Both yolk and white are embryonic stuff
And shell is mere wrapping; our eggdom lies
In the thin membrane between shell and white.


When hatched or broken, this connecting bond
Between the inner and the outer world
Is ruptured and our 'eggy' task is done.
The ego dwells in Maya's frail divide.

- - - - -
1972

Monday, April 21, 2014
Topic(s) of this poem: identity
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
A lighter poem I wrote after trying to grasp the concepts of this philosophy, 'From Dostoevsky to J.P. Sartre', in a brilliant book edited by Walter Kaufman (1957) .
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