An advent calendar of poetry: December 12

Imagine those three roosters abandoned in the woods near Hubbards. Their brazen strut against incredulous pines. The unabashed bugle of them announcing breakfast. Where are the whole chickens they requested for their dressing rooms? The pull-my-finger; what-do-ya-gotta-do-to-get-a-drink-around-here attitude Shake ‘n' Baking the tender meat of their terror. And that bewildering night sky, the sudden rush of something winged and talon-ed out of nowhere. They may act close to Miles Davis’s singular way of saying: "bullshit" but they’d be all aquiver, right? Shakey with the "wtf was that?" of being so deep in the woods. Two of them were easy enough to catch. But the third had too much snazz in him, the way some do. In Norse mythology, three roosters are significant. In Buddhism, they symbolize greed. A great deal is afoot. "I can't rest if I know something's out here and needs to be helped," says the voice of reason we need to bury as part of our cache we’ll dig up when this pandemic has gone back to its cave. The second rooster was used to help catch the third. "The future starts when I wake up every morning," it heard itself say, alluringly.