Born of an egg, but not of a chicken. Rather a soft, silky opalescent gathering of pearls. Soft shelled yet not easily broken. Those bodies emerge and know only hunger. They munch and they crunch, their lives one long lunch. They slip and they slide. At first, always afraid, their constant question:

"If I survive, can I go home?"

The very young ones don't know that they're already so close. With their heads and necks, they are halfway there. Only when there is the dark wing of a sparrow and the threat of a sharp beak do they come to know the shadow of death. It is then that they pull in their heads and save their necks. They find that their home had been there all the time at their back. They carry on, they have learned their lesson. With their tiny trails on leaf and rose, are they trying to tell us something?