the dandy cock
He steps onto the dewy earth,
a prince in silk and flame,
his feathers a painted riddle,
a sonnet of rust and gold.
No tailor stitched his splendor,
no weaver laced his cloak;
his collar flares with autumn,
his breast spills dawn and smoke.
The hens whisper his legend,
how he struts like a poem unrolled,
each step a brushstroke of thunder,
his eye a bead of coal.
And yet—he did not choose it.
No loom, no dye, no thread;
only the hand of the nameless wind,
only the kiss of the sun’s last breath.
Tell me, what cloth can mirror
the hummingbird’s sudden hush?
What jewel can rival the beetle’s back,
polished by light and dust?
He stands, neither proud nor humbled,
a fleeting ember of earth’s great fire;
a feathered echo of the sky’s own mind,
dressed in the truth of color.
