Poem for Saturday and Afternoon Around Redmond

Chickens 

By Kate Gale 

I come from hay and barns, raising 

chickens. In spring, lambs come. 

You got to get up, fly early, do the orphan run 

sleep till dawn, start the feeding. 

When the electricity shuts off, you boil water, you crack ice. 

You keep the animals watered. 

You walk through the barn, through the hay smell,

your hair brittle where you chopped it with scissors 

same ones you use for everything. Your sweater has holes. 

When you feed the ram lambs, you say goodbye. 

Summer, choke cherries; your mouth’s dry. Apples, cider. 

Corn picking. Canning for weeks that feel like years. 

Chopping heads off quail, rabbits, chickens. 

You can pluck a chicken, gut it fast. 

You find unformed eggs, unformed chicks. 

They start chirping day nineteen. 

You make biscuits and gravy for hundred kids 

serve them up good. You’re the chick 

who never got past day nineteen, never found your chick voice. 

You make iced tea. They say, you’re a soldier in the king’s army. 

At night, you say to yourself, Kathy, someday. 

We go walking. We go talking. We find a big story. 

A cracking egg story. A walking girl story. 

A walking out of the woods story. A not slapped silly story. 

A not Jesus story. Hush, Kathy you say, we get out of here. 

We find out where chicks go when they learn to fly.

-------- 

It rained all morning Saturday while we watched college football and I fought my ten battles in the Pokemon Go Battle Weekend Max Out event. By the time we ate lunch, the rain was subsiding, and the sun had come out by the time we went out, so instead of the indoor Diwali festival at the mall, we went to Farrel-McWhirter Park, which has both a farm with barnyard animals and trails in the woods along Mackey Creek. We also dropped off our ballots in the drop box and stopped in Whole Foods, World Market, and Safeway for various foodstuffs.

 

We got home in time for most of the UW-USC game which was close until the Huskies pulled away at the end, then spent most of the evening watching the second season of The Diplomat, which has some elements that are fairly preposterous, but Keri Russell and [spoiler] are so good together, and having Allison Janney on the show makes it even more fun than last season. It's so enjoyable watching women who make plenty of mistakes and selfish decisions but are resilient and confident and honestly trying to work for the greater good.