Which Came First? Poem by John Spencer

What we know as ego
Is but a shell around us.
We are not chicks yet.
Which came first?
There is no joke.
Birth has not yet taken place.

Our beaks are yet tapping the very fabric of heaven.
Our feet, curled and withered, are taking us nowhere.
They know not what life is.

We think we know
But consciousness deceives
And unconsciousness is what we are
Sleeping, waiting, growing.

We seek the womb, safe, but not real life
In our darkness what we think light is but sun’s shadow
Filtered by the veil in our eyes
Like the unborn.

We can wake up
We can be born
One small step we need
A giant leap perhaps
But surely egg and ego go
Like Humpty, broken,
Not mended, but
Yet evolved into something new, something fresh
Freed from false limits.

We have the answer
Now we know.

(Jan 07)