The
raven cries a lover's doom,
A
Christmas turkey lifts the gloom,
But
the greatest minds,
Like
Poe and Dickens,
Would
have got less done,
If
they'd kept chickens.
Unlike
the self-sufficient dove,
A
chicken tasks a host with love.
When
small an incubator's heat,
When
large the room to stretch her feet.
High
walls to keep the fox at bay,
A
sheltering roof from heat of day,
Fresh
straw to catch the fallen dregs
Of
ash from burning grain to eggs.
Most
brightly strut out their display,
While
darkened Scarlett hides to lay,
Light
brown gems of perfect hue,
With
speckled marble marvels too,
And
even one that's duck-egg blue.
But
no cross lover asking who.
Her
traitor hosts have secret doors,
To
plunder gold and sweep the floors.
With
clucking lady-like dismay
She
chides as orbs are slipped away.
Beware
of beaks and sharpened claws,
On
feathered part-puffed dinosaurs.
Back
in the coop she gets to try
By
falling what it's like to fly,
Gyrating
wings, a steady eye,
Our
russet Icarus sees sun and sky,
But
now is not the time to die,
She
lands on straw and pecks some rye.