"So much
depends/ upon/ a red wheel/ barrow..." William Carlos Williams
So much more depended on the chickens
than a red wheelbarrow.
Not the assembly line fast-grow, force-grow,
couped-up white chicken of today
but the free verse common fowl
farm fertilizing yardie
Rhode island, frizzle fowl and clean-neck cock;
the ever reliable fore-day
morning "cook curry ochro" crowing
country clock waking up to fry egg,
boil egg, scramble egg, raw egg with orange
or milk and stout; the vociferous fuss
and commotion "cock, cock, me lay" cluck
of a laying hen announcing to all
and sundry, fresh eggs for the plunder
or the round oh! oval of surprise,
delight of discovery
by schoolboy of uncharted nest
filled with young eggs before malfeasance
of mitosis intervened;
to say nothing of the drumstick, wishbone,
wings and feet reserved for Sunday lunch.
Who needed to push a red wheelbarrow
when we had a low maintenance, low
pollutant auto wheelbarrow needing no gas
but grass, the oxymoron of a dumb jackass
that, saddled with cocoa, ground provision
or gravel would refuse to overload,
grin, bare big teeth and snap at you, fart
and fling kick at your knee like Bruce Lee
or Wang Yu, refuse to budge,
lie down with the load, roll around
on the ground and refuse to get up
till it well and proper felt to do so;
or if by chance Jenny should pass,
go berserk with donkey fever
–
to hell with you and your labour;
ignore the cruel whiplash, laugh in your face
and bray "haw hee haw hee" as if to say
to the world "look at this dumb jackass
inflicting cruelty on what he thinks
is a dumb jackass beast of burden,
not seeing the beautiful,
strong and stubborn creature of resistance
with its own mind, willing to cooperate
when treated with respect and dignity;
forgetting is I who bore a Man-God
on my back to Jerusalem to bear
the cruel whiplash, to die
and live again to save the world."
So much depended upon
a brown wheelbarrow.
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