~ Joseph Brodsky

Stars hadn't gone dark yet.
Stars were where they belonged in,
when roosters were waking up and
shouting throaty songs in
the hennery, perched ceremoniously.
...The silence died out,
just like cathedral's quiet
does with the first choral sound,
echoing gloriously.

Having abandoned warm blankets,
grouchy and half-sleeping,
plowmen harnessed their cattle.
It was in the beginning.
The day broke as though a new egg,
revealing the orange yolk, meaning
the sun was rising; a duet
of skylarks
must have been singing.

Roosters usually fancied
grains of pearls over millet,
with their roostery senses
they searched for them here and there  
dunking into the dung. Yet,
grains were there to reclaim,
grains were there to extract, and,
at sunrise, they would proclaim:    
"We've found them all by ourselves
and husked them with a great artfulness.
So we’re boasting to everyone else          
about this fortune of ours."

In this throaty chime,
performed for eons,
repeatedly,
I see the fabric of time,
discovered by roosters unwittingly.