Here’s a poem called “Rooster,” by Jim Harrison (d. 2016). Harrison, who lived mostly in rural Michigan and is the author of several books of poetry. Perhaps his most famous work is the novel Legends of the Fall, which was made into a movie.
Rooster
I have to kill the rooster tomorrow. He's being an asshole,
having seriously wounded one of our two hens with his insistent banging.
You walk into the barn to feed the horses and pick up an egg
or two for breakfast and he jumps her proclaiming "she's mine she's mine."
Her wing is torn and the primary feathers won't grow back.
Chickens have largely been denatured, you know. He has no part
in those delicious fresh eggs. He crows on in a vacuum. He is
utterly pointless. He's as dumb as a tapeworm and no one cares
if he lives or dies. There. I can kill him
with an easy mind. But I'm still not up to it. Maybe I can hire
a weasel or a barn rat to do the job, or throw him to Justine,
the dog, who would be glad to rend him except the neighbors
have chickens too, she'd get the habit and we would have a beloved shot
dog to bury. So he deserves to die, having no purpose. We'll
have stewed barnyard chicken, closer to eating a gamebird than
that tasteless supermarket chicken born and bred in a caged
darkness. Everything we eat is dead except an occasional oyster
or clam. Should I hire the neighbor boy to kill him? Will the
hens stop laying out of grief? Isn't his long wavering crow
magnificent? Isn't the worthless rooster the poet's bird brother?
No. He's just a rooster and the world has no place for him.
Should I wait for a full wintry moon, take him to the top of the
hill after dropping three hits of mescaline and strangle him?
Should I set him free for a fox meal? They're coming back now
after the mange nearly wiped them out. He's like a leaking roof
with drops falling on my chest. He's the Chinese torture in the barn.
He's lust mad. His crow penetrates walls. His head bobs in lunar
jerks. The hens shudder but are bored with the pain of eggs.
What can I do with him? Nothing isn't enough. In the morning
we will sit down together and talk it out. I will tell him he
doesn't matter and he will wag his head, strut, perhaps crow.
I love the pile up of considerations the speaker brings to the poem, so he can kill the rooster “with an easy mind.” His mind is anything but, as he thinks about other options—paying off a weasel, letting the dog do it, or the neighbor boy—he starts thinking about oysters and the spirit animal of poets. Finally he thinks he can just talk to the rooster, and in that last line I got the feeling he isn’t talking about a rooster at all, but any annoyance that we let get so big it overpowers us.
It’s a funny poem, but unlike James Wright in my post from a couple days ago, it seems that Harrison really understands farm life as he describes how chickens work, and how the dog would have to be shot, and what gamebird tastes like relative to what’s at the supermarket.
Photo of Jim Harrison from the Postscript in the New Yorker, written by his friend, Thomas McGuane
With Harrison’s connection to the land in mind, read this transcript from an NPR report on Harrison’s idyllic life. It’s bizarre because it weaves through biographical notes by the host and interjections by Harrison. I suppose it makes sense if you watch it (though I can’t find the link online anymore), but reading it is funnier:
JEFFREY BROWN: After years of barely scraping by and refusing offers of academic positions, Harrison made his money and began living the high life in Hollywood, writing films like “Wolf” for Jack Nicholson, who became a friend.
JIM HARRISON: … look at those juices.
JEFFREY BROWN: Harrison also became known for his legendary eating and drinking. Food, for Harrison, is more than just one of life’s small pleasures. His motto is “eat or die.” He wrote a food column for Esquire magazine for many years, and he and Linda, his wife of almost 50 years, still cook and feast together.
They shared with us what Harrison thought of as a modest meal of roasted wild pig, homegrown vegetables, and fine wine.
JIM HARRISON: And it’s an especially flavorful pork. It’s perfectly cooked, Clementine.
Read more Jim Harrison here. And I just ordered a copy of Harrison’s 1991 food book for the store, so get it while it’s hot.