Once Evaleen feeding chickens

all around her in the yard tossed

the diamond out of her wedding ring

so quit wearing the eyeless thing

even to wash dishes weed the garden

stuff their Thanksgiving turkey

which had to bother Charlie

it wasn’t the money it was

what-all the shiny thing meant

as near eternal as they’d likely get

so for several years killing a hen

for dinner once or twice a week

out behind the barn he’d cut

the craw from the gizzard

dig the gravel there spread it out

on a piece of white paper he kept

folded around his reading specs

down the front of his overalls

till one night that sparkler bright as ever

turned up there it was inside a life

since the evening she’d lost it where

once the hens were in for the night

he’d looked hard with a flashlight

for hours on his hands and knees

knew if it was there he’d a found it but

said you know how quick a hen can be

once a thing catches her eye

Paul Hunter

These and twenty-some others grew out of a long poem about shy country people finding love, a piece called “Luminaries” that first appeared in his third farming book called “Come the Harvest” (Silverfish Review Press, 2008).