Daylight Calling

The young rooster’s first attempt to crow
is squeaky and uncertain,
a shaky unmusical phrase.

But as the days go by his confidence grows —
confidence in himself or faith
in the morning, I’m not sure which —
until after a month of steady practice
he bellows that eternal salute to the new,
the original reveille,
in a rendition absolutely his own.

I remember Blossom, our first rooster,
a fryer, maybe a broiler,
who fell off a truck somehow
and showed up one day
in our back yard. Bred to grow fat
in a cage and die at a tender age,
he announced every sunrise for three years
until at last his heart
could no longer push his weight around.
The morning after we buried him,
his number-one hen hopped up to perch
on a weathered segment of log
and uttered a long, brokenhearted croak
of a crow.

Stretched out here comfortably in the dark,
in no way ready for daylight,
I recognize that arrogant trumpet.
It’s the call of duty, a triumphant reminder
that every one of us has a reason to be here.
One more opportunity to live it out,
or at least persevere in the search for it,
is about to sear the horizon.

Refusing to wake up is no longer an option.