4 Little Roosters

4 LITTLE ROOSTERS

Where one is plenty but never more,

little roosters walked in a group of four.

As babes, dumped in a park.

Each other’s protection when it gets dark.

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One claw has been injured, 

 Another set of claws too small for that age.

The quad walks in lock step

Around their hostile, Springtime stage.

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With red under bellies moving from wine to rust, 

Eight black little eyes fixed in a glaze. 

Shown through the morning’s explosion,

they appear though the river’s haze.

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Location carved out of a beach.

Across the water lies yellow, vivid plain.

Dark green marshes left lately untouched.

Past your shoulder wisps the churning of a distant train.

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The ranger has seen them;

Each can stay if they don’t attack.

While they’re wild, but not homeless,

And no one is taking them back.

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On some farm they would fight, 

or show-off to the girls’ dread.

Who calmly service the farmer,

with daily yokes that are not red.

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Come Summer there are three, 

still walking around in sympathy.  

When the brothers slide out of march

They are quick to regain their unanimity.

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PART II

The crows seem to encode a satisfied laugh. 

Gulls and Sparrows sing of their neighbors’ distant dread.

By the late Fall I can’t see them

as I toss a piece of my drive-thru bread.

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As the year passed slowly,

I imaged confronting wild dog or fox.

But as I scattered bags of cornflakes

All I saw was a ranger with gloves and a box.

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The sun set on that year,

The proceeded no countdown from three.

With the cold leafless park,

there was nowhere they could be.

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