Chickens

You lovesome things!
Although on the glamour scale
I guess you fall alongside the lumpy ostrich, dodo, megapode or cassowary
but in every other respect, besides Dog, you must be Man’s best friend
our closest allies, dearest breakfast providers.
Just the sound of your contented burbling
and the sight of you rummaging around farmyards, in gardens, backyards, orchards
brings an earthy joy and luminous sense of peace.

That we put you in cages, or crammed into sheds
(called Free Range, to salve our consciences)
feed you with obnoxious substances
then eat you in obscene and excessive amounts
without grace or gratitude
is to our eternal disgrace.

Visceral childhood muscle memories are indelibly imprinted:
searching through the nettles, Beatrix Potter-like, for hidden clutches of eggs
being sent to close the hen-house door at dusk against marauding foxes
hearing them nattering and scrabbling about, settling to roost;
and the cock, pre-dawn, heralding a new day.

The sight of them toddling along, chuntering to themselves;
never in a straight line - unless making a bee-line for scraps -
the way they scrape and scratch, kind of cow-hocked
then the downy feel of them, their warmth and beating heart
restores proportion, gravitas and, half a century on, still warms the very soul.

Remember the little girl squeezing into the hen-house
through their front door, to commune with, cuddle, find company
while frantic mother searches everywhere…
…until small, knicker-bockered bottom emerges backwards
reversing down the ramp: “whats the fuss about!”
Wasn’t she safe in there, with her friends!
Tales of small-brained Henny Penny
or their silly tendency to flap and squawk
are cruel parodies: out of context libels
No-one is more together, more in-tune
smart and sensitive than a hen….

…In its natural environment.