We Have Run Out of Roosters Who Know How to Tell Time

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

We have run out of roosters who know how to tell time.
They sleep through the morning,
Then one day, when we are in the middle of an important business meeting,
They hop up onto our head and start scratching.
We may be attempting to fix the car, as usual,
By throwing stones at it,
When it hops up onto the hood
And marches about imperiously.
It seems that wherever we look there is the rooster.
He appears when we turn down the blankets,
We had been hoping to spend some time with a good mystery,
Or in the orison of the chorus of the fall.
We try to run him off the road,
We shoo him away from the trash bin,
We wave our hands at him frantically
When he appears outside our window during breakfast.
He will no longer come again at dawn,
That was too easy for him.
Sometimes we wake up and go hunting for him through the dark streets
And see his shadow on top of a lamp post,
Or hear the silhouette of his invisible crowing in the vast black canvas of sky
And the shadow of wise foliage.