“When the electricity shuts off, you boil water, you crack ice.”

/ Brett Ann Stanciu

In addition to showing up at Dartmouth-Hitchcock for chemo and consults to save my life, which thankfully appears to be going nicely, I also joined a writing group the hospital offers. Because writing saves lives, too.

Here’s a poem I read in this class, too good not to pass along.

“Chickens” by Kate Gale

I come from hay and barns, raising  
chickens. In spring, lambs come.  

You got to get up, fly early, do the orphan run  
sleep till dawn, start the feeding.  

When the electricity shuts off, you boil water, you crack ice.  
You keep the animals watered.  

You walk through the barn, through the hay smell, 
your hair brittle where you chopped it with scissors  

same ones you use for everything. Your sweater has holes.  
When you feed the ram lambs, you say goodbye.  

Summer, choke cherries; your mouth’s dry. Apples, cider.  
Corn picking. Canning for weeks that feel like years.  

Chopping heads off quail, rabbits, chickens.  
You can pluck a chicken, gut it fast.  

You find unformed eggs, unformed chicks.  
They start chirping day nineteen.  

You make biscuits and gravy for hundred kids  
serve them up good. You’re the chick  

who never got past day nineteen, never found your chick voice.  
You make iced tea. They say, you’re a soldier in the king’s army.  

At night, you say to yourself, Kathy, someday.  
We go walking. We go talking. We find a big story.  

A cracking egg story. A walking girl story.  
A walking out of the woods story. A not slapped silly story.  

A not Jesus story. Hush, Kathy you say, we get out of here.  
We find out where chicks go when they learn to fly.

15 thoughts on ““When the electricity shuts off, you boil water, you crack ice.””

  2. The Chicken poem is very good. Reminded me of one I wrote in 1990. I’ll post it with the understanding that you may not want every jack-leg poet posting crappy poems on your site and that you may pull it….I fully understand if you do. Regardless, I’m happy to hear of your progress.

    1990 Ch. F.    

    Darkness fled the light’s beam
    and for two beats of the heart
    I thought your ribs rose

    A quiver of the hand
    and the inconstant light
    gave the illusion of life.

    You did not stir

    I’m sorry; I stroked your hair
    glistening red in the faint illumination
    your mother stood by and watched

    A whippoorwill sang in the distance
    I have seen this before and thought
    I would be unmoved

    A birth alone in the darkness
    a stirring of huge forms….
    beneath, cold, wet–fear

    Your mother struggles to her feet
    to drive them away
    but they are too many

    You rise from instinct
    but the ground falls away
    you rise again and again

    The last attempt brings you
    to the bottom of exhaustion
    cold and wet, you lie and wait

    I wanted to be with you
    the .44 gleaming
    understudy of injectable death

    But you died alone
    Never able to find your mother
    I stroke your mane and weep

    Graceful legs destined to
    carry you at light-speed stretch
    endlessly from your small body

    What expanse of earth
    did you stride and gather yourself
    for that final leap

    Reply

  4. The authors words resonate so strongly. Her, Kathy to Kate. Me, Kathy to Kat. Breaking out and becoming FREE! 🦅

    Thank you for this, Brett!

    Reply

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