Wake Up Call

The rooster crows early and all day long and I am up with him before my alarm.  He runs from me now but I wait for him to turn one day and protect his hens, for me to be the one to run.  His imposing stance, the spiked comb, flapping wings and arched neck, his dominance over the others is clear.  I know the rooster at a glance.

There is also an oddball among them this year.  She resembles the others slightly and then diverges to her own breed.  She is quiet, submissive, I assume she'll lay.

I think I have a motley crew.  They are healthy enough and then there is the white one from last year whose legs are white too.  Was she always this way?  I can't remember, I don't think so.  A chicken's version of gray hair maybe.  She lays well.

And so we wait for new eggs.  The little, half-sized ones that surprise though we expect them and let out "aww's" at their cuteness.  I wait too for the rooster to come at me with ferocity and a frenzy of feathers and wonder what I'll do when he does.

We can see summer's end now.  We mark it with the close of camps and vacations and chickens about to lay and SCHOOL written in big letters on the calendar.  I stand in hot baseball tryouts and schedule piano lessons and gymnastics.  We savor last days at the pool and wonder about teachers.  The baseballer is nervous today and I for him but this is the life from which we cannot shy away.  It is here, right now in front of us to be missed if we let it slip by out of fear or apathy or inattention.