For reasons I hope will become clear in the near future, I have not been able to concentrate properly on April’s poetry month. I discovered and mentioned April NaPoWriMo - https://www.napowrimo.net/ earlier. The exercises have looked like fun, but the best I can do at the moment is save them in a file for later and do one when I need a break from my deadline work.
One prompt came to mind this morning as I observed the neighborhood, and I definitely needed that break. The challenge was to write a poem that confronts a well-known proverb. This morning, the neighbors’ chickens made me think of “The grass is always greener on the other side.” Let’s see how that works.
Him and Her Chickens
at the barbed wire fence
scratching the grass,
seeking spring seeds.
He moseys forward,
moving into the meadow.
She meanders around him,
crossing under the fence.
She clucks in chicken speak,
“Grander green over here!
Tender sprigs
on the other side.”
“Just like the proverb,”
he squawks back.
“Greener grass is
always on the other side.”
Pecking and chipping,
neighbor chickens eat in circles,
meandering back under the fence
to equally green grass in their own yard.
I watch with amusement, my phone camera at the ready. I’m so glad humans are smarter than chickens and would never look at someone else’s space and decide it was better than theirs. Or would they?