Ode to the Chicken House
For Gina Dearden
A Work in Progress
41
There was a structure called the chicken house
well-lit maybe once a Nissen hut where she worked
nearby a caravan where an overflow guest could sleep
a quince tree in a paddock where geese flocks cackled
a dry floored shed where fruit was left to season
on spread out sheets of newsprint from The Times
a woodshed with ample split firewood for the winter
an axe and a chopping block all kept dry
her room in the big house and access to an Aga
a fridge and a wooden table where actors would sit
and chat before leaving for the Southampton Rep
coming home later to make cocoa before turning in
her heart was inside her studio where all seemed faraway
as she mixed colors made etchings always new things
nearby ponies traveled New Forest paths, private places
in a time when many young Americans travelled abroad
some had served in Vietnam others reluctant awaited fate
four dead students had already fallen for their cause
peachie le nic was one of those a hungry New Yorker
raiding the fridge for chicken wings scooping it all in
a Columbia journalism school grad with portable typewriter
set with an italic font to imprint onion skin paper
artists, actors, exhibitions together in the chicken house
when the sixties hit ten and the seventies began
when we were all very young when we all felt free
in the first act of an epic we’d all been cast in
her sketchbook cover was decorated with color
Its zeit geist design still etched in my mind
Dick Russell © Richard M Russell
2025
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