Hen

I brought the hen in today.
It was too cold to leave her out alone.
She is the last hen, all the rest
have been fox taken, or just died
of old age,
and now my brothers have left home
one egg a day is enough.

I tip the duck water out:
clunking chunks of ice
as if moulded glass
crack on the lawn's anvil;
out and in footprints are dents in the hoary grass,
lines of care.

Wild birds waste no breath in song,
flicker a sinking fire's warmth
in the shadows under trees.

There is beauty here, but it is that of death,
peace because this chill has stolen the will to fight for life.

I look in on Hen in her straw lined box
before I go to bed.
Her eye is bright in the suddenness of electric light.

She is alive.
Outside the night hammers down