The water dark and deep,
strands of pond weed trail
the edge, like emerald hair.
Ducks dive down, searching-
worms, insects, seeds, snails. .
Feathered wedges emerge
above the surface, orange bills
and feet submerged.
Elegant, paddling effortlessly,
masters of their watery world.
In the farmyard, waddling, awkward
a distinctly middle-aged gait.
Aristocrats of the farm,
geese, dignified, regal.
No whiff of feminism here.
The gander, martial, proud,
leads his flock from the front.
It is no surprise that a gaggle
of geese saved the Roman citadel
from Barbarian attack.
The guards and watchdogs
of the farm, they noisily
announce the presence of
marauding strangers.
Eggs, large and ostrich-like,
the favourite of pastry cooks!
Chicken, the foolish, fluttering fools,
which rush from one pile of corn
to another, missing out on the feast.
The hens, flounce and dither
behind the dandy of a cockerel.
Vanity ‘chickenfied’, splendid
in a bright panoply of colours,
he leads his dowdy harem.
With no civic conscience,
he crows at first light,
proudly, at full throttle,
an intrusive alarm clock of a bird!
Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from Cambridge, UK who has also lived and worked in India and Tanzania. Her work has been published in twenty countries from Australia to Kazakhstan. It has appeared in over 200 literary magazines and anthologies including ‘The New English Review’, ‘ Moss Piglet’, ‘Songs of Eretz’, ‘Quail Bell’, ‘Waywords’, ‘Cosmic Daffodil’, ‘Dorothy Parker’s Ashes’, ‘Hooghly Review’, ‘Meat for Tea’, ‘Rural Fiction’ and many others. This year she has been nominated for Best of the Net’ and a Dwarf Star’.
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