One of the differences for me of life in the country is the time. I know there is the same amount of time everywhere, but there seems to be more here. More space. In general I am not especially mindful or meditative but I like the space to hear people, and the space to think about what they said.
Every Sunday we drive to the Preston Hollow flea market.
That sentence is wildly imperfect. FLEA MARKET should be an emphatic
typeface indicating how high it is on the Big List.
I am the opposite shopper of those who go
for Something Specific. A Blue Dress for instance. Yesterday
after Preston Hollow we kept going visited an old barn
we’d seen last summer. The owner
appealing woman late eighties dressed in Sunday red was finishing
her two table puzzle. “I had forty chickens across
the street,” she began. “Forty. Every single one of them had a name.
One day I was crossing to feed them and I got hit by a truck.
OK my kids said. Enough chickens. They sold my chicken barn with
all the chickens inside. I started collecting chickens at the flea
market. Can you believe I have twelve hundred chickens now.
In my bedroom upstairs. Roosters are next a customer in here said.
He was wrong.”
I loved this poem though I’m not sure I understood the last part about the rooster.
Thanks for writing Gayle. She only wants chickens. That’s all. Maybe I should make it clearer.