A Serious Cluck Impediment

“Puck”, she says, “puck”,
it is as close as she can get
to articulating “cluck”. At
least I take it that way –
in an amused appreciation
rather than an ominous and
obvious connotation that I
have a young, Sussex hen with
a serious cluck impediment.

A charmer she is, hunched at hatch
and grown into an elegant hen with
clearly defined black and white
markings of her handsome kin,
making her winsome way in the
yard with outrageous one-liners;
‘Puck’ means a lot to me but I’ve
relented and named her ‘Hunch’.

I wait the day when she claims
stage centre with a pealing
acclamation on her first egg; I know
it won’t have the musical qualities
of her peers but I am sure she will
surprise. Hunch is practising, she put
together four “pucks” this morning
in the most complete speech
I’ve ever heard her make.
© 19 April 2007, I.D. Carswell