Hatching

I

Am a baby bird,

And I feel the eggshell all around me,

Cracked and broken in its various layers

And there are some holes

Through which I can see sunlight,

But I cannot see enough of the world outside

To know what it will look like,

And the only thing that I am sure of

Is that it will not look like the world I’ve known

Here within this egg,

I am half-hatched,

Breathing the air of a new dawn,

But still covered in some places

By the egg’s protection,

And I ache because I must be born,

Long to be born,

And yet to do so I must destroy

What little protection I have left,

What remnant of the world I’ve always known

But I was made for greater things

And it is no longer time for me

To live within an eggshell,

I must hatch and see the world around me,

Eat and drink and emerge

Blinking into the sunlight,

And though I cannot fathom it yet,

One day I shall fly,

Soar far above the world I’ve always known,

So far beyond egghood that I cannot even dream,

Because right now it’s enough for me to fathom

Sitting in a nest in a tree,

To fathom nests and trees at all

When all I’ve ever known is egg…

And I can see a bit of bark, a leaf,

A flash of blue in the sky beyond,

I don’t yet know

That one day I will rule those skies,

And alight on the branches of the trees that surround me,

Swooping down to the Earth to find provision and new discoveries,

And easily transitioning between air and ground,

Right now all I know

Is I’ve got to come out of this egg,

Cheeping for the warmth and protection that I’m going to lose,

But certain that I’ve grown too big to stay in this smallest of spaces,

So I wiggle and I move and I trust

As another piece pops off,

Revealing just a tiny bit more of the world that I will rule,

But which just now seems so very large and scary,

Yet deep within my Heart

Something screams inside of me

And tells me to continue

To grow.