song of the golden age of chickens

[betteroffbad]

The golden age of chickens was a strange time for chickens
They had read all the classics of human poetry and philosophy but they were still mostly chickens
They pecked hungrily at words and argued among themselves about the meaning of words
and the meaning of dreams with examples all drawn from the world of men
just as if they were part of the world of men which in a way they were, being literate
but they were also chickens who lived in coops not houses
laid eggs that were stolen by the hands of men
ate the grain of men and borrowed their proverbs and stories

On the day that I was hatched, damp and bleary in the spring wind
Just a few days north of the golden age of chickens
My mother, a chicken, tried to tell me the story of Aeneas
A cocky clawed man with noble beak and wattle red as sunrise
and the hen he left brooding on the bare-scratched shores of Carthage
I could not understand her; I chirped and flapped my tiny wings
The cool wind fluffed me, I tried to understand her
I learned a few words and lost them, and the golden age was over