Surprise find on a hike, continued

Later, on another walk, I smiled and picked up the egg again. I began to polish it carefully on the skin of my palm, and it shone blue and porcelain-y.

Then it broke. Stunned, I looked into my palm to see the sunflower-orange yolk speckled with bits of white & blue shell, like broken China. A brief volley of relief to see no defenseless blue-eyed fetal embryo -- not even a red dot of intention on the yolk. I let the clear and yellow egg drip off my onto the ground. I wrung my fingers like a baker with her hands covered in dough. Using the dewdrops off a fern bough, I washed the last sticky remnants off my hands & let the water drip, again, onto the same spot of ground.

I walked down the road, the smell of raw egg strong in my mind, and on my hands. I crouched at a red-silt pothole in the road, I scrubbed my hands with wet gravel & mud, then rinsed them. Almost afraid, I smelled them. Cold, muddy earth -- clean. I trust them back into the pockets of my thick green wool trousers and walked down the road. Seasons change, cycles turn, life ensues.