Chicken Vigil
Who will believe me when I say
my hens forgo their daily dig for bugs
and choose instead to sit like saffron Buddhas
beside their sister-hen whose legs have failed,
whose wings lie limp as silk?
She won't eat until I push the bowl up close
and all three peck the mash as one.
Her wattle shrivels;
not an egg in months.
Her morning squawk's gone silent.
I've been accused of anthropomorphism
more than once, have seen a cat smile.
But maybe we have it backwards —
that it was a bird who first sat watch beside the dying,
and we were too busy evolving to notice.
© T. Clear
Appeared in Entropy Mag, May 2019
Reasons to Continue
This one egg
bedded in straw,
golden-rose
in the middle of winter.
These three hens
fluffing the nest.
This blanket of moss
after summer’s scorch.
These bare apple-branches.
This cracked-shell moon
rising above mountains at dusk.
© T. Clear
Appeared in Entropy Mag, May 2019