The Cycle of the Chicken

The Cycle of the Chicken

(A poem and a Commentary)


The Poem



A Chicken, it is born out of an eggshell
After less than a month it lives as a
fluffy ball
Eats, and eats, and eats corn and meal
until its heart’s content;
And if it survives from the dreadful
diseases of cholera and pip:
It just moves about, under the sun
half sick, and dies to its end.
Then the hen and the rooster—to its
mysterious plight, struggles to
Maturity: the hen lays more eggs,
And the cycle starts all over again
(something like us humans).


No: 2654 (12-1-2009)



Commentary: It would seem to me, chickens are not the smartest of animals on the face of God’s earth; and on the other hand, much likened to people, quite fragile. If a disease doesn’t get them, something else will, perhaps hit by a moving farm machine, or an automobile, stuck in some hole, eaten by a wildcat or alike. They do stupid things; they are simply too often led astray. The hen on the other hand is a mysterious creature, whereas the egg seems more blessed than the fluffy ball chicken, and the hen included.
I think you’re better off owning a restaurant business than a chicken farm; one reason being, the cost in incubators or worrying about the hatching process. Whereas, all one has to do in the food service business, is crack the egg and fry it, and serve it or cook the chicken and boil some noodles for chicken soup. The road is less bumpy.
My grandmother used to use the feathers from the chicken for pillows, I inherited two, and she would cling tightly to those chickens to get the feathers; that, in its self is a hideous process; nothing easy in the life of a chicken; as my mother used to say, “I can eat chicken everyday,” she liked the taste of chicken, as so many of us do. She worked at Swifts, in the Meatpacking department (beef and pork) she couldn’t stand to kill a chicken.
Well, these are the facts that make life so discouraging in the chicken cycle of life.


No: 533 (12-1-2009) SA