"A Gift" by Steve Ng

Based on the poem "Early Morning, Thinking of Jerusalem" by Ann McCrady (in Under A Blameless Moon, 2007). Thanks to Megan Dalby-Jones for introducing this author to us. Written for the last of the Poetry, Psalms and Prayer series.

A gift
a gift of good intentions
a presentation of happiness
what someone knows of it.

A chicken
a chicken is what children need
to have a love of life
on the farm of their childhood.

But should this chicken
grow into a rooster
having nothing to do with children
except to crow loudly during the dawn
waking children and adults alike.

What was this gift
to be given of happiness
turning into loneliness
of the sentinel rooster
crowing to itself
to the sun that rises mute.

No, happiness they must find on their own.
It must, after all, be their own happiness
and not what the giver intended.
But the gift has been given
and loneliness will be
part of their lives forever.
It is as necessary
as the rising sun.