Alice and Joanie B. Dream of a World of Roads to Cross...
In the New Year, Alice and Joanie B. are chickens who are ever questioning and questing--pecking around for answers through their adventures, crossing many roads. The inner-chicken always crowing for exploration and chicken-self-determination.
For Alice and Joanie B. - such restless angst is best addressed through poetry, whether chicken themed or chicken nuanced. Thus, we find our fair-feathered-library-hens squawking aloud -- in chicken-speak (translations provided in parenthesis) -- their favorite poem addressing a chicken's relationship to roads...
Alice: Rawkkk! The Road Not Taken
Joanie B: Bawk Rawwwkbert Frawwost....
Alice: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one chicken, (traveler), long I roosted (stood)
And pecked (looked) down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Joanie B: Then chook (took) the other, as just as feathered (fair)
And having perhaps the better croak (claim)
Beak-cause it was grassy and wanted worms (wear)
Though as for that the scratching (passing) there
Had wraww-worn them really about the same,
Alice: And both that morning equally laid an egg (lay)
In leaves no claw (step) had scratched (trodden) black.
Yet knowing how wraaawwk (way) leads to wraaawwkk (way),
I doubted if I should ever scratch back (come back).
Joanie B: I shall be crooning (telling) this with a squawk (sigh)
Somewhere eggs and eggs (ages and ages) hen (hence)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---
I chook-chook (took) the one less crossed (traveled) by;
And that has made all the differ-hen-ce (difference).
...And somehow in the course of their chicken recitation, Alice and Joanie B. find solace, their yearning assuaged by the language of roads and poets...(within the poetic collection at SCCLD of course) - or, as Antonio Machado (Translated by Alan S. Trueblood) writes in a poem found in A Family of Poems:
Has my heart gone to sleep:
Have the beehives of my dreams stopped working, the waterwheel of the mind run dry, scoops turning empty, only shadow inside?
No, my heart is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake. Not asleep, not dreaming-- its eyes are open wide watching distant signals, listening on the rim of the vast silence. |
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 Robert Frost |
Notes from Laurenjoan:
Chickens, roads, poetry - the very stuff of life - hear the real Robert Frost, *himself* reading the real poem "The Road Not Taken" (minus interpretation by chickens) with the *real* poem printed below:The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(Source SCCLD Online Resource: The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry)
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http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m223/blinao89/woods.jpg
http://www.lesausa.org/news/pictures-of-the-week-highlight-chicken-crossin-the-road
http://blog.mypetchicken.com/2013/01/18/one-of-the-best-things-about-backyard-chickens/
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