In this kingdom 
the sun never sets; 
under the pale oval 
of the sky 
there seems no way in 
or out, 
and though there is a sea here 
there is no tide.
For the egg itself 
is a moon 
glowing faintly 
in the galaxy of the barn, 
safe but for the spoon’s 
ominous thunder, 
the first delicate crack 
of lightning.
~Linda Pastan, “Egg”

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:
it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present.
And you cannot go on indefinitely
being just an ordinary, decent egg.
We must be hatched or go bad.
~C.S.Lewis from Mere Christianity

I try hard to be a good egg-
smooth on the surface,
gooey inside, too often scrambled,
yet ordinary and decent,
indistinguishable from others,
blending in,
not making waves.

It’s not been bad staying just as I am.
Except I can no longer remain like this.

The unhatched egg gets the boot, even by its parents.
When there are no signs of life,
no twitches and wiggles and movement inside,
it is doomed to rot.

And we all know nothing is worse than a rotten egg.

So life must move forward,
the fragments of shell left behind
abandoned as
useless confinement.

Newly hatched
means transformed to more than ordinary:
now there is the wind beneath my wings.
I’ll soar toward an endless horizon
where the sun never sets.
and stretches beyond eternity.

No longer scrambled and gooey.