The Pieta Of Egg And Twig Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The business of suffering
Begins with the egg
Which may be a stone laid in thorns
By a cuckoo with grave intent.

The world of the egg's a mandala
Bleached of colour;
Shadows, darken its surface,
Two twigs uphold it,
Though it goes against the grain
To do so.

Hatched, cuckoo flexes its wings
After the dawn chorus.
When the dried saliva
Moistens in the mouth,
When the braying donkey's
Tethered to its post,
An ox steps up to the stone,
Bearing a virgin sacrifice,
Laurel leaves on her brow.

A megaphone announces
Her imminent dissolution.
Ice-cream will be served,
After the blood and sawdust