The Egg that Rolled

The Egg that rolled

Just an ordinary egg

Came out of a chicken

On an adventure away from the kitchen

Down cobbled road

And Shaftsbury’s Hovis hill

It bowled its ovaloid body

Driven by an inner will

Narrowly avoiding disaster

As it crossed the road

This egg was its own master

And had destiny under its thumb

Like a Prince who came out of a toad

It missed each pram wheel by inches

Then evading the horses hoof

This was a living reminder

That life lives on a knife edge

If ever we needed proof

And trundling like a lost general

In search of his egg army

He seemed self important to the untrained eye

When what guided his blindness

Was courage and faith in his Life

So there is the irony

It was just that this was a fortunate egg

In that every move he would try

Came out a sparkling success

This was no shell-shocked guy

His formaldehyde soul

Grew very cold

Like Jekyll and Hyde

He was an egg of two minds

Brought together in the oxygen of his shell

Albumin and yolk

Played some practical joke

To make him indestructible

Meant he could not die

And so on he rolled

Down the tragic road

That was his life

Being an egg that could not crack

Meant likewise that he could not hatch

So to be spared the ritual

Humiliation of the chicken

On the pecking order

His will told him to leave the kitchen

And find another abode to board on

The ocean was his calling

From when he was a foetus

And soon he came to the ocean's cusp

In a land named Lyme Regis

He pervade the sea for all it was worth

From a top a cliff top and there he did perch

But as soon as he had settled down

He found himself in an albatross' town

Where busy gulls, guillemots’ and puffins

Were roosting and laying eggs ten to the dozen

And by chance a bird named Harold arrived

And plucked this egg so that he may survive

So, on they fled across ocean swell

Well into the evening and things were going well

Then down he landed on the coast of France

And said to the egg, you are free now take your chance

So the egg trundled on down roads that were familiar

He heard the faint call of accordions, smelt onions and the sky that was vermillion

Past hawthorn nests of owls

And smiling white cows

He alighted himself upon a hay cart

Pulled by an ox

Then travelled on there

With less a wing more a prayer

Until his wanderings brought him to the Alps

Now by this time he had made many friends

There was Alphonse the fox

And Bernadette the owl

Stephanie the squirrel

And Miriam the mouse

They all were dressed in berets and striped jumpers

And the egg dressed like them too

And they all said "it suits you"

So not out of place did the egg seem now

When he journeyed up the foot hills

Of the Alps with a cow

More the traveller with means,

For many things had he seen

And made a small fortune

Displaying in a circus

Where a strong man named Roger de la Forte

Tried to crack him with his muscles

But all that cracked were the piggy banks

Of the circus goers he would hustle

So saying “fair well” to the Ferris wheel

And “so- long” to the Ring Master Monsieur Devil

He journeyed on into Switzerland's fair Climbs

And soon found the time

To visit the sights and squares of Geneva

One day he stopped by the lake's great fountain

And watched a long time thinking it as tall as a mountain

And what sprang to his egg's mind was a plan

He began to hatch

A dream that one day he might fly

So at the dead of night

He took on a gondola to alight

Amid the luscious lake of the fair town

And boldly going where no egg had gone before

He nestled himself into the sleeping fountains core

And there he waited until the next morn

When the fountain man turned the water pipes on

: Then to everyone's delight

In the crisp morning light

The egg was shot clean into the stratosphere

Now feeling less earth encumbered

This egg went through the ozone

And around the earth

He orbited like an orb

Some clever folk from NASA said

There goes a UFO, proof that life

From another planet has arrived

And much was made by Europe

Of the flying eggs orbit

And it put to bed many wars

For the people of earth saw that they were not alone in the universe

So they no longer felt lonely or frightened anymore

Then the egg left the Earth's gravity

And was pulled by positivity

Out to the furthest region's of the solar field

Where he settled on Pluto

Feeling all was going well

A miracle then occurred

This Egg who could not hatch

Finally did just that

And the first extraterrestrial chicken was born

He went by the name Prince Pluto

And spent many a year going to and fro

Discovering what else could be explored

Until finally alighting

In a cave away from lightening

He found another chicken who was earth-bored

Together they made a family

And are living still quite happily

Raising many Plutonians abroad