Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, May 13th, 2024.

Today's poem is by Phyllis Levin, and it's called End of April, which is almost timely.

I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then read it a second time.

End of April.

Under a cherry tree, I found a robin's egg, broken but not shattered.

I had been thinking of you and was kneeling in the grass among fallen blossoms when I saw it.

A blue scrap, a delicate toy,

as light as confetti. It didn't seem real, but nature will do such things from time to time.

I looked inside. It was glistening, hollow, a perfect shell, except for the missing crown,

which made it possible to look inside.

What had been there is gone now and lives in my heart, where periodically it opens up

its wings, tearing me apart.

There's an element of mystery in the movement of this poem, which is almost intangible.

It's hard to see or make out exactly how Levin succeeds in constructing it. Maybe it's just the subject matter. Hopefully, if you're listening to this, you have had a similar experience

where you come upon some natural object that carries within itself a sense of mystery. A bird's egg, this thing that is

usually out of reach, that is protected, that is fragile, is one of those objects. It's delicate,

it's rare, and it seems unreal, too good to be true.

But as she says, from time to time, nature will do such things.

The mystery, too, is of what was inside and where it has gone.

And this poem then takes up that naturally occurring mystery

and then offers a metaphorical and maybe metaphysical solution to the mystery to the riddle

...