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