Monday's Poetry: "The Death of the Old Plymouth Rock Hen"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

As the Democrats prepare to open their quadrennial national convention later today, I searched for a suitable poem by a Democratic politician.  And while several Presidents of the Democratic persuasion were accomplished minor poets - including Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama - I did not find any presidential verse that I regarded as particularly appealing.

I did, however, come across the following farm-related poem by sixties' moral icon and peace activist Eugene McCarthy.  Senator McCarthy always spoke from the heart, and his anti-war sentiments still resonate within his Democratic Party  and the soul of his nation today.

Senator McCarthy wrote some verse related to the Vietnam War, extraordinarily good pieces which I will endeavor to include in this blog in the future.  But for today I wanted to go with the farm theme, particularly in this week where we have experienced the unkind attentions of death at The Roost.

This is a poem about being completely used up.


THE DEATH OF THE OLD PLYMOUTH ROCK HEN
by Eugene McCarthy 

 

It was tragic when her time came
After a lifetime of laying brown eggs
Among the white of leghorns.
Now, unattractive to the rooster,
Laying no more eggs,
Faking it on other hens' nests,
Caught in the act,
Taken to the woodpile
In the winter of execution.

A quick stroke of the axe,
One first and last upward cast
Of eyes that in life
Had looked only down,
Scanning the ground for seeds and worms
And for the shadow of the hawk.
Now those eyes are covered
By yellow lids,
Closing from the bottom up.
Decapitated, she did not act
Like a chicken with its head cut off.
No pirouettes, no somersaults,
No last indignity.
Like an English queen, she died.
On wings that had never known flight.
She flew, straight into the woodpile,
And there beat out slow death
While her curdled voice ran out in blood.

A scalding and a plucking of no purpose.
No goose feathers for a comforter.
No duck's down for a pillow.
No quill for a pen.
In the opened body, no entrail message for the haruspex.
Not one egg of promise in the oviduct.
In the gray gizzard, no diamond or emerald,
But only half-ground corn,
Sure evidence of unprofitability.
The breast and legs,
The wings and thighs,
The strong heart,
The pope's nose,
Fit only for chicken soup and stew.
And then in March, near winter's end,
When bloodied and feathered wood is used,
The odor of burnt offerings
Above the kitchen stove.