Wednesday with Chickens
It’s an early night for me tonight. I have a disgustingly early flight to Detroit for the Sisters-in-Law live podcast show tomorrow night. I’ve tucked in the chickens (we’re expecting storms) and will be heading off to bed as soon as TV is over tonight.
Lots going on, most notably news that neither the Fulton County case nor the classified documents prosecutions are going to see the light of day before the election. Although that already seemed preordained, it’s now formal.
In Fulton County, the Georgia Court of Appeals will review Judge McAfee’s decision that Fani Willis can stay on the case. Whichever side loses the appeal will likely apply to the Georgia Supreme Court for another bite at the apple. The process will take months.
In Florida, Judge Cannon has removed her May 20 trial date from the calendar. She refused to set a new one, but scheduled almost all of the pending motions in the case—she’s let them pile up—for hearings between now and July. Just the unresolved issues regarding the possible use of classified information by the defense could hold this case up past November. It’s a straightforward prosecution that should have gone to trial early this year.
Tomorrow, Stormy Daniels returns to the witness stand in Manhattan. On Tuesday, we learned from the daily transcript that the Judge held a sidebar conference with Trump’s lawyers because Trump was “cursing audibly” while Daniels testified. The Judge was concerned that might intimidate Daniels, which seems logical and also something of an understatement given the situation.
Judge Merchan also commented that Trump was going on in full view of the jury. There is no doubt they took note. While Trump’s lawyers claimed Stormy Daniels’ testimony went too far and asked for a mistrial, which the Judge denied, if anything prejudiced the jury against him yesterday, it was Trump’s own behavior.
Judge Merchan could have admonished Trump directly, but instead, he spoke with lawyer Todd Blanche, characterizing the former president’s behavior as “contemptuous.” He said he didn’t want to embarrass Trump in court and told Blanche to have a talk with his client, concluding, “I won’t tolerate that.”
Tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
I always love the chicken pictures. I hope the storm passes over without incident and that you have a safe flight tomorrow.
Wednesday with Chickens
I.
Wednesday unfolds, an expanse of hours
between dawn and dusk, marked by the metronome
of chicken feet, the staccato of beaks pecking
at the scattered generosity of seeds.
II.
In the coop, a congress of feathers and clucks,
each bird a study in the mundane magic
of existence, their small lives large with the urgency
of the earth, the earnestness of appetite.
III.
You move among them, a slow deity
with offerings of grain, a curator of their needs,
watching the fluff of dust rise, a soft storm
swirling at the shuffle of your boots.
IV.
This is ritual, repeated with the reliability
of the sun—a covenant of caretaking,
where you give and are given to, in measures
of mutual necessity, the simplicity of survival.
V.
The chickens, with their sharp eyes and quick turns,
possess a philosophy of now,
a presence punctuated by the pursuit of more—
more food, more sun, more space.
VI.
How they regard you, part suspicion, part acceptance,
a feathery pragmatism to their gaze.
To them, you are both weather and landscape,
a condition of their world, a fixture as fixed as the ground.
VII.
Their clucking is a language without translation,
a commentary on the immediate, a vocal embroidery
on the fabric of the day, each thread pulled
through the eye of minute, moment, and morsel.
VIII.
Sometimes, you imagine their bird-brain thoughts,
projecting grand narratives on their small-scale dramas,
an anthropomorphism as tender as it is foolish,
finding in their brief flights the shadows of larger stories.
IX.
But on Wednesday, there is only this:
the weight of your bucket, the weight of the world,
the weightless leap of a hen towards something just beyond reach,
and you, standing amid the feathered chaos, smiling.
X.
So, the day passes, stitched from such small moments,
and you learn, from chickens, the art of pecking at life,
taking what comes, grain by grain, joy by joy,
until the coop quiets and the evening gathers, golden and good.