Poems in support of @poets4climate

Who’s the Unclucky One?

I’ve a clip on my leg, and one on my wing.
I’m a bird, but I don’t sing.

I’m barred from the yard, shut up in a cage.
I work all day for no wage.

For meals, I peck at a pile of muck.
No wonder my voice is a grumbly cluck!

But I’ve treats for your tea:
guess them – and guess me.

You’ll find them in shells, in sixes or twelves,
stacked up in boxes on grocery shelves.

Guessed? So what could I be?

(Answer: a battery hen)

Kate Williams

Published in Dear Tomato,
An International Crop of Food and Agriculture Poems,
ed. Carol-Ann Hoyte, 2015.

The giant enjoys a rush-hour roast,
with roaring revs to chew,
or toxic-monoxick fumes on toast,
or air pollution stew.

He loves to graze on motorways,
though any road ‘ll do,
with slurp and burp and lane-long laze
and a global stroll or two.

But what of woodland, meadow, coast,
lake of gleaming blue?

Those? What do you suppose?
Those he leaves to you.

Kate Williams

Published in The Caterpillar Magazine, Spring 2015.