Fly Away Home

XXI - Animal Farm

Ducks in the kitchen

and chickens on the table

spilling chocolat chaud

and towel-drying silkie* puffs

after springtime storms

Puppy-dogs on sofas

on thundery nights with soothed whines

Goslings on the patio and sleeping in jodhpur laps

kittens being coaxed to the door

-and one time, a lost homing pigeon

in the bedroom- bats asleep in the bath

and hornets dancing at windows

with house martins twittering

back and forth between field and nest

with summer grass tidings in their beaks.

Horses grazing in the fields, two ginger,

two dun, a bay and a chocolate dun

named: Echo (she was so beautiful)

Cows from time to time, barn owls gliding

in the evening, and herons and hares

standing tall and proud, and foxes and badgers

passing by with red squirrels trapezing in the poplars.

(26th January 2014)

*the media picture is of a silkie chicken