Ode on Wild Turkey
Sand Ridge Nature Center, October 18, 2021. Photo by Walter Marcisz.
by Patricia O’Donnell
O Wild Turkey! Surely I dreamt today, or did I see
Thine broad-fann’d plumage with awaken’d eyes?
I wander'd in a forest aimlessly,
And on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw the fairest of creatures, strutting, plump’d up, feathers so fine,
Crouched in deepest grass, beneath whisp'ring roof
Of hazel, hickory, oak, and pine;
Thine tremulous gargle would give me proof.
To hear the staccato cluck of thy hens,
Or the guttural gurgle of light-wing’d Jakes,
The finest birds found in forests or fens!
O gobble, melodist, until thine heart aches.
Gobble, gobble, beard and snood;
Chump and hum, yelp and purr,
More gobble love, more gobble mood!
Sing thy song o’er the prairie forev’r,
A cornucopia of songs eternally loos’d
In the golden light of the sunken sun,
Awaken’d from thy sycamore roost,
O'er ochre fields thou dost float and run.
Come Thanksgiving Day, the wakeful anguish of our souls,
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow;
Awkward tables, burnt dinner rolls,
And hango'ers on the morrow.
Here, where men sit and hear each other’s groans
Of Bidens, Trumps and drama,
Of foreclosures, high-interest loans,
And legal marijuana,
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of Wild Turkey I had drunk,
Or o'erindulged in Butterball wings,
Which in the deep fryer I did dunk.
'Tis not the tryptophan that leaves me dead,
Nor Freudian envy of thy penile wattle,
But the red, white and blue colors of thy head:
Patriotism leads me to the bottle
Of Kentucky River water in aged charred oak,
Malt and mash, milled and distilled;
Wild Turkey on ice with a little Coke,
That I might drink, and forget how thee were killed.
T’was only the electric lecherous Founding Father
Defend’d thy honor, O noble poultry,
Bird of Courage, which mothers slather
With butter, sage, thyme, and parsley,
Onion, celery, pepper and salt,
Season’d, brin’d, baked and basted,
Thine succulence is not your fault;
Thine acorn-fed life has not been wasted!
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!
Wouldst thou escape the men with guns and ammo,
For they are, and hear me at my word,
Fam’d to deceive with faux clucks and camo.
Though hungry generations tread thee down,
In the ancient Aztec and Mayan world
Thou wast worshipp’d as God, by emperor and clown,
O Chalchiuhtotolin, jewel’d night bird!
Fade away into the forest dim,
Far away, dissolve into the dark-cluster'd trees;
With the pines thou shalt murmur in the wind.
Gobble, gobble, Wild Turkeys!
And quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known:
The weariness, the fever, and the fret;
Gobble forth a flood of divine rapture in thy moan.
On a lone winter evening, when the frost,
Has wrought a silence, new grown with pleasant pain,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Turkeys among some grassy hills remain.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never,
Forever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
The Wild Turkey song, in warmth increasing ever,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
Forever clucking and purring, as a dove;
Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Forever gobble, gobble love,
Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble.