the compassion anthology
  • About Us
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Staff
    • Exhibit Photos
  • Letter from the Editor
  • Poetry
    • Amirah Al Wassif
    • Zakia el-Marmouke
    • Rachelle Parker
    • Michelle Messina Reale
    • Todd Davis
    • Lori Levy
    • Tim Suermondt
    • Amy Small-McKinney
    • Chad W. Lutz
    • Brenda Yates
    • Carolyn Martin
  • Fiction
    • Leo Tolstoy
    • Leslie Contreras Schwartz
    • K. Alan Leitch
    • Laton Carter
    • Dave Barrett
  • Essays
    • Cathy Warner
    • Serenity Schoonover
    • Review of the Movie What Do You Believe Now?
  • Art
    • The Masters
    • Amantha Tsaros
    • Christopher Woods
    • Ann Marie Sekeres
  • Archives
    • Spring 2019, Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2018 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Spring 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Exhibits/Fundraisers 2015
    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
      • Gabriella Brand
      • Sarah Wernsing
      • Jen Karetnick
      • Cindy Veach
      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
      • Andrea Gregory
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
      • Alexandra Grabbe
      • Olive Paige
    • Art, 2019 >
      • Krisztina Asztalos
      • Rute Ventura
      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
    • Winter 2017 Art >
      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
    • Winter 2017 Essays >
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
    • Summer 2016 Fiction >
      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
    • Summer 2016 Poetry >
      • Colleen Michaels
      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
      • Heather Nelson
      • Bahareh Amidi
      • Alison Stone
      • Julia Travers
      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
    • Summer 2016 Essays >
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
    • Winter 2016 Art >
      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
    • Winter 2016 Poetry >
      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
    • Winter 2016 Essays >
      • The Gleaners
      • The Aliveness Project
      • Named
    • Summer 2015 Fiction >
      • The Cloak
      • Sanctuary
    • Summer 2015 Art >
      • Environmental Art
      • Compassion in the Midst of Violence
      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
      • Eye of Oneness
      • Stepping Forward
    • Summer 2015 Poetry >
      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
      • Reparations
      • Transference and other poems
    • Summer 2015 Essays >
      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
    • Winter 2015 Fiction >
      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click
Think of An Egg
by M. J. Iuppa  

Dark brown, speckled brown, tawny-rose, sea mist blue. Eggs gathered every day from the nesting boxes in our hen house and brought into the kitchen where we sponge bathe them, one-at-a-time, carefully under the gooseneck faucet’s warm rinse, then set them to dry in a towel-lined bowl. More daylight, more eggs. By summertime, we have the promise of a farmer’s breakfast every morning.
*
Full-bodied black orpington and buff Brahma, sleek Easter egger and Marans; they don’t cluck, they purr and are aloof as cats. Maybe it’s because they sneak up on the porch and help themselves to the cats’ dry food. They circle round the dishes like parishioners at a church picnic, heads tipped in idle conversation, yet their eyes are looking over the dishes carefully ready to pick their fill, which they do while the cats look away.
*
Eggs are much more than the question of what came first. To study an egg’s architecture is to see a world made oval. The dynamic of its shell, both strong and fragile, houses the perfect sun floating in a translucent sea. I think this is why I’m always surprised when I crack open a fresh egg. The yolk’s color is bold and thick and influenced by what a free-ranging hen eats as well as the color of her legs. If pumpkin guts and rind is the farm’s special of the day, then the egg’s yolk will be a deep fiery orange.  
*
Every year, we plant zucchini. Is eight too many, four enough? We always end up with more than we can handle. Our hens, with their insatiable hunger, have become the solution to our Zukes Alor! When the zucchini grows to baseball bat size overnight, we split them in half and lay them out in the yard. In less than an afternoon, the hens have whittled the halves into canoes. They even test them out, standing in the hulls, with one foot up on the prows until they tip over. It surprises them, this sudden upset, then they poke around a bit. Since they’re unable to flip the canoes back over, they act like it was meant to happen and nonchalantly walk away.
*
My mother made the best lemon meringue pie. The recipe was a secret, her secret. At the dinner table, we would beg her to tell us, and she would whisper: “When I’m about to die, I will open my eyes and say to all of you at my bedside, the secret to the recipe is . . .” and she’d slowly close her eyes.
“Wait! Mom, what is it?”
“Too late,” she’d quip, “the secret dies with me.”
All of us would laugh because we were all too pie intoxicated to put up a fuss. No doubt, her secret was all in the eggs.


*
Before we began raising chickens, we use to enjoy diner breakfasts. Something wonderful about ordering coffee and the 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, 2 slices of bacon for two dollars and twenty-two cents.
“How do you like them?” the waitress would ask with her pad and pen ready.
“Over-easy,” I’d say, watching to see if she’d write anything down. She never did.
In two minutes, she’d slide the heavy white plates under our conversation.
“Anything else?” she’d ask, pouring a bit more coffee.
We’d stare at our plates, at the watery pale yolks and flat bacon, and slightly buttered brown toast.     
We could never think of anything else.
Now, I can’t remember the last time we went out for breakfast. We have an orange mini-skillet with a fried egg handle. It makes one perfect egg any time of day. Why go out, when you can breakfast in. That’s our slogan. But truth be told, we’ve become snobs. Nothing compares to organic eggs.
N-o-t-h-i-n-g.
*
Sometimes, while taking my time washing eggs with a soapy sponge, I wonder: what’s the point. My friends, who enjoy convenience, say in their best upbeat tone, “So, you’re really doing it, aren’t you, growing your own food and all?”
Surprised by their doubt, I say, “Yes,” and the conversation suddenly stops. Not because they don’t know what else to say, but because it’s hard to understand the commitment. They cannot imagine why anyone would choose a life that’s full of inconvenience. Yet, the care of chickens—rising early to feed and water them, listening thoughtfully to their cluck & coo, watching their scratch and shuffle before releasing them to their day, is much like our day—full of possibilities—worth the price of eggs.
When I wash the last egg, I stare at its shell as if I were counting its 17,000 tiny pores, then I pass it under the faucet for a final rinse, knowing there will be more tomorrow.
 
M.J. Iuppa  is the Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program and a lecturer in Creative Writing at St. John Fisher College and a part time lecturer in Creative Writing at The College at Brockport. Most recently, she was awarded the New York State Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, 2017. She has four full-length poetry collections including This Thirst (forthcoming from Kelsay Books, 2017), Small Worlds Floating, Within Reach (2016 and 2010, respectively, from Cherry Grove Collections), Night Traveler (Foothills Publishing, 2003), and 5 chapbooks. She lives on a small farm in Hamlin NY. This lyric essay was first published in Sugared Water.

 
Proudly powered by Weebly