An old chook like me

A poem I wrote yesterday

: The Old Chook

My feathers once crimson and pink
are now tattered, falling, or thinning out.
My beak has a crack in it
so I only eat the blandest of tucker.
I watch the young chicks preening
their iridescent coats, clucking and gossiping 
in a circle which excludes me.
I waddle, I wander, I wobble,
then as expected, stand with legs wide enough
to do the splits and fall into a muddle of pebbles
as I slide on melon and banana skins.
My favourite rooster, so bright his feathers 
were like Joseph’s technicolour coat, is gone,
taken one day by the humans in the big house:
that night we heard singing and laughter
as visitors from far away were hosted.
I don’t leave the bamboo walled pen much 
because of the sly creeping mongoose
who would grab one of my arthritic legs
and that would be the end of me,
though really the tender chickens would be tastier
than this old chook with the falsetto cluck.