Day: May 13, 2012

 

Got a text from my angel, on the move these days.

“How R U?,” she asks. “In LA. Auditioning for American Idol.”

How is it going?

“Grt. Good on high notes.  Randy hates me. I miss Simon.”

My angel is on the way to see her father, across that river,

taking that train a’comin, where faith is all you need to get aboard,

you just have to thank the Lord.

I’m nervous, she says. My annual evaluation.

I have not performed to expectations. Mine or his.

He will ask me, she texts,  why so many people

have forgotten to give the poor some joy, or to laugh,

or love much.

The world has forgotten, her father thinks,

that love is the reason for everything, the point.

The poor and the animals are his children, she says.

He is not happy.

Should I tell him, she asks, that some people

can no longer hear the magic and the music?

And she signed off. “XXOOXX.” Sorry to be so distant, she said.

The angry and the fearful and joyless drain me, she says,

and I am tired. “Thank God for my Ipad. Enuf of me. How R U?”

My angel is turning pages, clicking away on her browser,

reading the blogs faithfully. Keeping relevant, like everyone else. Looking for broadband. Hard to keep up.

Suddenly, she is offline.

“Call Customer Service,” her return reply says. “Angel Support. Your pleas and prayers are important to us.

If we are unavailable,please contact your nearest agent or lawyer.”

And I text her back and try to help.

And I suggest that she understand,

on the road to the promised land,

that Satan wears a suit and tie, and sells fear and war

and warnings and medicine,

and health insurance and IRA’s,

and has made the world an argument, in disguise as a Good Samaratin and  seer.

I told her that good and evil sometimes look the same,

but love and light can never lie.

Freaky the Hen is the Bolshoi diva. She preens and prepares alone, apart from the other chickens, beautiful and skilled as they are. She has nothing but contempt for the photographer if he is not tossing grain or corn pellets around. She does not even acknowledge his presence. As the stagehands scurry around, and the audience takes their seats, Freaky, whose color far outshines all of the other performers, closes her eyes and gathers herself for the performance. There is nothing else in the world for her but her dancing.

Like all divas, the chickens do not notice the photographer hovering about them, moving with the light. The are deep in preparation, concentration.  They are going over the moves, cleaning themselves off, puffing up. They are stars, assured and above the small distractions of life. Decidedly inferior humans see them as foolish and dirty and even eat them. But the Bolshoi Chickens live in the moment, live in the dance. You are welcome to see the Chicken Bolshoi Ballet.

The chickens have a secret place, alongside the Pig Barn, under the lilac trees. They are coming to trust me and my camera. When they are in their secret place, I often come and lie with the camera for a half hour or so, and they tilt their heads and cluck at me a bit, and then go about their business of strutting and preening and clucking. Before I take a photo, I like to imagine the chickens as dancers in the Chicken Bolshoi Ballet, and the lilac bush is their green room, and they are preparing to go on state and dance and they are cleaning and stretching and preparing themselves. They are swirling and preening, a carousel of color and focus.

And I am a fly on the wall, a mirror, just hoping to capture a sense of their glory and stardom. That is what I imagine, lying in the muddy and wet grass, at the Chicken Ballet.