Friday Poetry: Old-Fashioned Hen by Elizabeth Coatsworth

My sister and her husband have recently acquired some chickens, so I am posting this for them. Not that they read the blog, but maybe their chickens do.

Old Fashioned Hen

Now and again I like to see
a hen who still runs wide and free

who crosses roads and flies o'er ditches
and cackles till she gets the stitches,

who hunts for grasshoppers in the stubble
and scratches merrily in old rubble,

who cocks her head when roosters crow,
who knows all things a hen should know:

when to obey the housewife's call
and when to pay no heed at all,

where grubs grow best and how to roost
on some low branch without a boost,

and last of all, to prove her worth
(her nearness to the rights of earth)

let her become an agitator,
fixed enemy of the incubator,

and obstinately steal her nest
and shelter chicks beneath her breast!

~ Elizabeth Coatsworth

And how is this a Fourth of July post? Well that chicken has freedom of movement and freedom of speech and freedom to provide for herself and freedom to raise her own children and all sorts of freedoms that are being encroached upon thanks to the Patriot Act (turning citizens into suspects since 2001). Today we make a big to-do about celebrating our independence yet we are rapidly losing our civilian freedoms and apparently very few people are taking note.




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:: this post is part of the Friday Poetry roundup hosted by In Search of Giants.

poetry