The Rooster

From The New Yorker, September 5, 1988.

The Rooster
by Al-Asad Ibrahim ben Bilita
Arabo-Analdusian poems, ninth-thirteenth centuries

Up he stands
To declare the darkness done for

The bird trimmed with a poppy
Who rolls his lustrous eyes for us

With song he calls to prayer
And he complies' with his call

Beating his great plumes
Flexing his shoulder knuckles

The Emperor of Persia
Perhaps wove his crown

Personally Mary the Copt
Hung pendant rings from his ears

He snatched from the peacock
His most attractive cloak

And still not comforted took
His strut from a duck