a single hen

Yesterday we went to the National Poultry and Pigeon show - an amazing and noisy mix of hens, ducks, geese and pigeons  - everything that cooed, screeched, crowed or, surprisingly, maintained a serene silence. My husband's family had brought Orpingtons to New Zealand in the late 1800's and sure enough there were plenty of this impressive breed to be seen. But it was this little hen which stayed in my mind long after we came home. 

She won no prizes; she had none of the sense of presence which the large and elegant breeds displayed, no charismatic personality to win over the judges, no raucous call or vigorous scratching to attract attention. 
She was simply herself :  a silver laced wyandotte - and her beauty touched my soul. 

Take a moment to look at her feathers - every single one is vivid white edged with black ... she might have been overlooked by the judges, but for me she encapsulated the beauty that is all around us  - the wonder inherent in the fallen autumn leaf, in an individual feather, in the shimmer of a velvet rose petal or the unguarded smile of a child ... the small things of the world.  

And I thought of William Blake's poem Auguries of innocence  :

'To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour...'

It wasn't just her beauty which moved me. As I looked at her, and at the other birds, 

I was reminded that they  deserve to live freely in an environment which allows them 

to behave naturally and do what hens do. 

I thought about my egg-buying habits - free range generally  - but I don't always look too

closely at the packaging to see what this actually means.

And I should.

Blake's poem challengingly continues :

'A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.'


When we mistreat the creatures who contribute to our wellbeing, we do them violence,
and we offend the Creator.  


One measure of a society's maturity is how it treats the least powerful - 
animals and birds as well as people.


We still have a long way to go.