October 19, 2015

29 - Shakespearean Sonnet: My Hen Summer



This is a Shakespearean sonnet, in the form abab cdcd efef gg, in (more or less) iambic pentameters. It is my first sonnet. 


My Hen Summer

When I see Summer, my hen, fly on my arm
looking bright eyed at the parched soil
and staring, one eyed at the scorching sun,
enjoying the yard, each leaf and grass, no toil

on her mind; and I weeding and stumbling,
too old and too sick to give her the garden
she once had, I see the weeds, the mold, grumbling
at her joy in the place where once I was warden.

Unable to keep her from beasts of prey
and from ills biding in the ground
I noticed her blinded eye one day
but not she, she thinks her world safe and sound.

It seems that the eye with which she can see
is the one she sees the world as bright as can be.

Background: 
My main hobby used to be taking care of my back yard and my chickens. Now that I am ill my yard is unsafe and is making my hens ill. I am giving them away. The poem is about one of the last times I went to play in the yard with my favorite hen, Summer, and I realized that she had been injured and was blind from one eye. That's when I realized I was no longer able to keep my pets. My hen thought there was nothing wrong, but I was watching her knowing that I would have to give her away. I seldom cry, but I cried as I was writing this poem.