Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, March 25, 1991                   TAG: 9103250215
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AH, SPRING/ EGG TRICK REQUIRES A POETIC LICENSE

This is supposed to be possible on the Vernal Equinox. Supposedly, eggs can be stood on end when the first day of spring arrives. At least, that's what a poet I know says.

It has something to do with gravity, she says. Or maybe it has to do with the tilt of the Earth's axis. I don't quite remember. I just remember the part about eggs balancing on their ends. And that part may be true or false.

This is the sort of myth that poets love. It's easy to remember, full of mystery and magic, completely unprovable, and totally irrelevant. Also, lots of words rhyme with "egg."

Any regular bar patron knows how to balance an egg on its end, especially if money's at stake. Just sprinkle a little salt on the counter, lick the egg, and - voila! - you've won a buck.

Poets like tricks without props, however. They want divine intervention or mystical forces at work. They want to call on the same little-known laws of nature that once got folks burned at the stake, only they want to do it with impunity. They want it to seem as if they know lots of stuff other folks don't know, and they want to be held in awe for it.

I'll bet there are more than 10,000 people in the United States today who call themselves poets, and another 10,000 who write poetry when they're really, really depressed. And I'll bet more than two-thirds of them would argue that a poem doesn't need to make sense, as long as it's beautiful.

Bah! Humbug!

I'll admit I myself have written a few little compositions that I've called poems. Some of them rhymed, and some of them didn't. I've never written about balancing eggs, though I did once try a hortatory poem for my nephews on the virtues of eating their vegetables. "Peas" were easy, but nothing rhymes with "carrots."

I'll also admit to spluttering on occasion, "Well, if you can't figure out what that means . . . !" But I don't do either any more.

I balance my eggs with salt, if salt is what it takes. And I mark spring's arrival by the tree frogs that sing on Goose Creek. There's enough mystery in life already, without me adding to it.