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    clover in red and white

    Parable

    By Mary M. Brown

    September 14, 2017
    1 Comments
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    • Eric Blauer

      Love this piece, thank you for publishing it and the print is gorgeous!

    a linocut print in red and white of a rooster

    Here in the suburbs we are annoyed
    when the neighbors decide to raise
    chickens, build a coop and rise each
    day to crows and the promise of eggs.

    We pluck feathers from our petunias
    and our pools, listen to rasping cackles
    as we mow, glance to the sky to plead
    for justice and when the hawks fly low.

    Only when someone forgets one night
    to cinch the latch on the outside fence
    can we let our indignation go. Now we
    gather our sorrows like the neighbors’

    children, who find some way to pick up
    the bodies and the bones – feathers from
    our yards, too – and accept the old ways
    of foxes or coyotes, holding no judgment.


    Artwork: © Olivia Clifton-Bligh, Red-Breasted Old English Game Cock, hand-burnished illuminated linocut print. Used with permission.

    Contributed By MaryMBrown Mary M. Brown

    Mary M. Brown taught literature and creative writing at Indiana Wesleyan for many years.

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