by Barbara Crooker
Ordinary barnyard chickens, a rooster and his hens, feathers
of lapis blue, copper green, scratch the ground in folio 67r, above
the parable of the sower and the seed. Did they come clucking
and pecking when they heard the grain rain down? Or did they flop
with a squawk to listen to the story? Was it corn that was thrown?
Were these the seeds that fell by the wayside? Did they fall
on deaf ears? Were there thorns ready to choke new growth,
or was it rocky ground where some sprouted among stones
but couldn’t withstand the sun’s hot breath? We are told
to throw our kernels on good earth and they will grow
thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold.