I have observed all kinds of birds, both wild and domestic, for most of my life. I have watched turkey vultures riding thermal updrafts, rising like bubbles in a kettle of boiling water. I have seen my future in the circular patterns of hawks, great invisible rings that reveal my earth-bound path. A white bird, like an arrow above my head, foretold the birth of my first daughter and left a name for the second.
When I was small, I was allowed to go to the chicken coop to collect eggs. One by one, I set them in my basket, the palest green alongside the softest brown. I reached under a sitting hen and was startled by a warm, wet egg as it emerged from her body. I pulled my hand back, embarrassed. I went back for it later and found it as smooth and dry as a stone.
In the basement of his old farmhouse, my grandfather had a brooder. It looked like a multistoried apartment building for chicks. They would crowd around the light bulb for heat, like yellow electrons darting around a red nucleus. There was a constant dawn chorus of peeping. Sometimes my grandmother would take a chick, and place it in my hands. I would put my cheek against it, and inhale the scent of the yellow fluff. For a moment, it was mine. Then I would return it to the song, losing it forever to the chaotic yellow.
At home, we had our own flock and a tame bantam rooster I could cradle like a cat. I held his feathered claws carefully away from my belly. I sensed his docility and slipped my hands into the downy space between the feathers. I felt the naked skin and the bumps that rooted the feathers and watched him flap from my arms to the ground. He looked at me with one eye. With a slow, staccato prance, he returned to his beloved hens, a drawn-out cluck emerging softly from his beak.
One summer weekend, when my grandparents came to our place, I was asked to help outside. I was given two struggling chickens, one for each hand. I carried them by their warm feet to the chopping block, where my grandfather waited with his axe. I passed him one bird, and he laid the head between two nails. With the shallow sympathy of a child, I felt pity for the thrashing body, and sorrow for the head. When I passed him the second bird, my job was done. I went over to my grandmother, who presided over a pot of boiling water. She dipped the freshly killed chicken in to loosen the feathers for removal. I watched, wondering what good the feathers were, if they couldn’t fly away.
When I was a child, I frequently dreamed that I could fly. It felt so natural to come down the stairs as if on wings, swooping out the door, joining the wild birds that have not lost the ability to fly. In one dream, I coasted over our chicken coop, and peered through windows of protective wire. I saw the dream hens waking and stretching their wings, remembering the sky. I woke up grounded, wishing flight could be as easy to hold as the egg that had been born into my hand.
Shawn McClure is a visual artist and writer from New Jersey. Her work appears in Noble/Gas Qtrly, Jellyfish Review, and other places around the web and in print.
What a lovely, moving tribute to the chicks and the hens and the rooster. Such love. Beautifully written!
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كفو
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Lovely story!!
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Wonderful. This piece soars, that’s for sure.
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Great story
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Beautiful imagery
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Evocative and gorgeous, sweet and melancholy. I appreciated this as both a chicken-keeper and writer. Thank you.
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Amazing.
Read this too
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Beautifully written! You have such a wonderful way with words.
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lol
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Loved it! I had chicks and baby quail at home when I was a kid. My tiny incubator was a miracle worker in my mind! Great story.
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Lovely! When I was a kid, I had chick babies as pets and I would cry when they died. Once I met a goat and really liked him. Later that week were having a meal and my dad said this is your friend Mr.Goat that we are eating. I cried and cried…
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Beautifully written! Thank you for sharing! ❤
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I remember that yellow softness from my own childhood, and the peeps against my cheek. Thank you for sharing your memory. Lovely.
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Your writing seems effortless. It flows from the page into my mind like words to my ears. It brings back memories of my grandpa’s farm in Mississippi. My cousins and I would gather eggs too for our granny. Growing up on that farm was magical and I appreciate the memories. Thanks for sharing. You brought me home with this quaint little story.
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Pingback: I love this essay by: Shawn McClure – Swagpink1kat·
Well done
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Nice
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I am intrigued by the philosophy here. I wish I don’t come off as attacking here, but why would your grandparents kill chickens knowing you had chickens too?
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Wonderful story. We, too, had chickens. I revisited the chicken coop of my childhood as you collected eggs in the coop of yours. Your closing paragraph was especially lovely. Beautiful!
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Beautifully written, delicately evocative and compassionate.
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Sweet story, easy to read too 😊 couldn’t stop reading when I started!
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Horror..!..poor creatures…! Some gods will punish those awful crime..!….15-mar-2018
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This is really nicee
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Pingback: Essay: Sorrow for the Wings by Shawn McClure — JMWW – City of God family charity foundation CGFCF·
I remember well growing up on the farm. My dad hatched out chicks every year. I have a small incubator I haven’t used in years. As kids, we loved it.
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Outstanding talent
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Loved this essay, and your words gave me flight for the moments while I read.
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Lovely piece of writing. Though wings could be made use of to fly and explore, there is always a tied wire that holds us back. Only when we rage and go against it, we would be getting rid of the clutches and setting off into the space which has so much in store for us.
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While chicken may be good to look at, when they’re young, the species was domesticated centuries ago and it has become fodder for humankind.
Our original goals need to be remembered when the sorrow happens – this chicken farm was setup so I could make a living – make some money! If it ends-up on someone’s plate, then that means they paid for it and I got paid too!
Happy Farming!
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جميل
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Beautifully put together. Follow me to get beautiful poems of life.
http://www.versesofsoltitude.wordpress.com
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Aw … this was a lovely read. We farm and my son befriended chickens throughout his childhood. He was always speaking to them and handling them and collecting the eggs. When Mr Fox found his way in or over the high fencing one year, my son was devastated at nature’s way. We trundled off to the place where I always bought chickens and found pretty a pretty Sussex and down bantams. Your post brought it all back to me!!
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Your passage is truly remarkable. (I wish u had ducks coz I have 2). Ping me if u wanna know more.
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This was absolutely beautiful and moving ❤
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Pingback: Essay: Sorrow for the Wings by Shawn McClure – Testing Testing 1-2-3·
Loved the flow, thank you for sharing, keep writing 🙂
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This is really nice work…Did you really saw the emerging of the egg from hen. That must be a very rare site
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Readers visit my site too…
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Loved it, your writing style is amazing.
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This is beautiful, and spoke to me in many ways. Thank you.
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For someone who has never experienced something like this, this was as good as happening in real life. Thank you for this 🙂
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Pingback: Essay: Sorrow for the Wings by Shawn McClure — JMWW – 100star·
Ah…I remember the chicks from my childhood. Saw mum butcher a family pet rooster. Still devastated about that. Times were hard I understand…but Still, the pet rooster.
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I can sense your words, when you realised ‘what good the feathers were, if they couldn’t fly away.’ How true ! 🙂
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Hey, I just found your site. I love how you are portraying the essay as a beautiful piece of writing, not the high-school and college constituted meaning that so many dread. Thank you for that.
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Reblogged this on CrapPile.
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Another strong encouragement for me to be vegetarian.
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Why do you think it is that as we grow older the idea of dreaming for better becomes harder? Is reality like the chopping of the chicken? Or do the events that happen in our life restrain us from aspiring to be something different from who we are now?
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