This morning when I opened the barn to let the chickens out, the sunlight streamed in through the doorway and must have hit the rooster in just the right way. As if taken over by a force larger than himself, he crowed for the first time in his life.

He was shocked.

The hens were shocked.

I’ll never forget how they all froze in that universal experience in which something so new seems strangely familiar.

He tried his feeble little call a few more times; the hens stared at him and shook their heads in amazement.

I, of course, have been humming “Meet Me in the Morning” all day long.

“Little rooster crowing; must be something on his mind.” – Bob Dylan