~ to be a chicken girl ~

from the very beginning,
she never really understood the whole idea of being coop-ed up inside,
when she could, in turn, be outside
scratching around and soaking up sunshine and catching lightening bugs.

she sewed her own clothes from discarded feedsacks andbake her own bread from millet seed flour...made tiny baskets from pine needles and daffodil leaves and kept glass jars, to which she would add occasional feathers, stones...bits of bone.

~ her neighbors knew her as gentle, but a bit odd.
and one that could, and would, defend her little flock
as readily & fiercely as any rooster,
if need be.
... don't test her, you won't win.

oh to be a chicken-girl!
a humble girl...slightly weird and with a crop of red hair piled atop her head.
one who always wanted to live on a farm, in the woods, near a creek
where she could fetch clear spring water and look for arrowheads.
 she loved to walk through her gardens, with
the hems of her skirts and fresh-mud stained apron picking up the sweetly scented herbs
planted there long ago between dirt the paths.

she relished sunshowers and drank from honeysuckle vines ~while humming quietly to herself the songs of the crickets and cicadas.

she read poetry books and garden books and followed the moon and starsand painted in pigments and wove with wildflowers.

her tiny heart would beat the fastest when she would playfully outrun all of her sisters, each one cackling joyfully as they half ran, half flew;
a ruckus to see, actually
...with feather-y petticoats and gravel flying in the stirred-up breeze.

her life was filled with summers, sunflower seeds and worms.
~ her dreams were made real by clever magic and my pencil.
~ Blessed be ~
Levora

{an original short story & watercolor ©Lori Brechlin 2024}