Collecting Eggs

Among the pure delights, collecting eggs,
A never failing joy that simply begs
To share with us its magic every day.
Each forenoon’s strident loudly cackled boast
Excites us, serves to keep our thoughts engrossed
In promised booty that the sounds convey.

Just where and just how many will there be?
Most surely it’s the sheer uncertainty
That makes our primal hunting instincts rise.
We know the common places where they’ll hide,
Scorning the nesting boxes we provide,
But each day brings with it some new surprise.

A fresh site scratched out underneath the hedge,
The tractor seat, the woodshed on a ledge
And some eggs found weeks late to our regret.
Of course the broody hen so hard to track
She sees us follow close and doubles back
And waits and waits but we’ll outguess her yet.

These eggs of ours we laud as solid gold,
Of such transcendent quality we hold
Their battery tray-packed cousins in contempt.
We’ve laid the things ourselves, the way we skite
Of flavour, cakes and pavlovas so light,
And seem the poor hen’s glory to pre-empt.