To Raise a Son

The hens have started laying again.
So with renewed gratitude
this Easter Sunday morning,
my young son and I
clean the chicken coop
(fowls' foul nests, we joke)
and sift rabbit poop
from the chicken food.
I tell him about Eostre,
goddess of spring, who
(stories say) saved a bird
with frozen wings by transforming
her into an egg-laying rabbit.
"Why?" he likes to ask.
"For luck," I guess, "perhaps
in overcoming death,"
which makes me bring up
the dark ages, when ever-hedging
humans began to color
eggs like flowers, like jewels
containing precious suns.
"That's what we'll be doing,"
he adds, and we chat
with each hen by name,
pondering the meaning
of her calls, then free
their dinosaur bodies
to run and scratch and sprawl
in sunny oases of sand—
"Do you think dinosaurs
loved our sun this much?" I ask.
"More," he says, "if they were
cold-blooded," knowing
this is something scientists question,
and at last, we open
the laying box: "Four eggs!"
he shouts, bloomed and warm.