flight. Branch and leaves fell to my feet, followed by something slower, fluttering down. I plucked it out of the air: a long white feather.
I brought the feather to my nose. It had a gamey scent that triggered something primitive in a remote, rarely used part of my brain. The tip of the feather was still sweaty, as if dipped in invisible ink. I pantomimed writing cursive in the air, strange symbols in an unknown language, and then slipped the foot-long feather into my pocket.
I felt tingly, sweaty from exercise. I hadn’t seen a person all day, lost somewhere in the deep forests around Jackie’s. Wildness. Feelingthe feather, I smiled inwardly at the surprise of scaring a hawk from its sleepy perch. I took the feather out and again traced strange characters in the air, this time more slowly. I put it back into my pocket, walked a few more steps, stopped. What the heck had I been writing? And, beyond my feather-traced haikus, what a beautiful lexicon, all of this: feathers dropping from the sky into my hand; the first wildflower of the season; my neighbors’ wild mass of fowl; the great silence of the 12 × 12. I walked on.
I crossed out of the woods again and onto a winding country road. Whistling, twirling my feather, feeling buoyant, except … there was that mysterious smell again, growing stronger, a smothered scent. I sniffed the feather in my hand; no, not that. The feather smelled like a night in the forest, a naturally pungent smell. This other, very different odor increased with every step until it was a full-throttle stench. The first vehicles I’d seen that day roared past. I’d arrived at a perfect railroad crossing gate with its red lights, complex hinges, and long straight wood. And then, to my left, I saw, like a nightmarish mirage, the source of the stench: a monstrous chicken factory.
KEEP OUT. BIO-SEALED , read one sign in flaming red. Another sign: GOLD KIST POULTRY CENTER . Behind the signs was an absurdly manicured lawn, like an estate photo from Town & Country , and a dozen or more “houses” — long, rectangular warehouses for the poultry.
By now the smell was almost unbearable. On the warehouses, circular fans blew out feathers and the stench of chicken waste. These chicken houses were identical to the others I’d seen on the drive to Jackie’s. They each “did” tens of thousands of birds a day, feeding the Gold Kist empire. (Gold Kist was the country’s third-largest chicken processor until it was purchased in 2007 by the even larger Pilgrim’s Pride. Gold Kist kept its name; the combined company is the world’s biggest of its kind, surpassing Tyson.) Mike Thompsontold me that, in addition to mutilating their chickens through beak searing, tail docking, and ear cutting, Gold Kist was experimenting with featherless chickens to eliminate inefficient plucking, along with beakless chickens that couldn’t peck at each other, something they tend to do as they go nuts over being confined to a tiny dark space their whole lives. When chickens peck at each other, they spoil what they are to us: meat.
Later, out of curiosity, I would visit an industrial chicken factory, one of a hundred throughout that part of North Carolina, nearly all of them producing poultry for giant companies like Gold Kist. The first thing I noticed was how dark they are. Factory farming began in the 1920s soon after the discovery of vitamins A and D; when these vitamins are added to feed, animals no longer require exercise and sunlight for growth. This allowed large numbers of animals to be raised indoors year-round. The main problem that occurred with this kind of intensive confinement was disease, but in the 1940s the development of certain antibiotics took care of that. Unfortunately, factory farming causes suffering and pain for animals and is a scourge to the environment. I couldn’t believe the suffocating ammonia smell inside. Around me, thousands of birds were caged so tightly that they weren’t able to
I brought the feather to my nose. It had a gamey scent that triggered something primitive in a remote, rarely used part of my brain. The tip of the feather was still sweaty, as if dipped in invisible ink. I pantomimed writing cursive in the air, strange symbols in an unknown language, and then slipped the foot-long feather into my pocket.
I felt tingly, sweaty from exercise. I hadn’t seen a person all day, lost somewhere in the deep forests around Jackie’s. Wildness. Feelingthe feather, I smiled inwardly at the surprise of scaring a hawk from its sleepy perch. I took the feather out and again traced strange characters in the air, this time more slowly. I put it back into my pocket, walked a few more steps, stopped. What the heck had I been writing? And, beyond my feather-traced haikus, what a beautiful lexicon, all of this: feathers dropping from the sky into my hand; the first wildflower of the season; my neighbors’ wild mass of fowl; the great silence of the 12 × 12. I walked on.
I crossed out of the woods again and onto a winding country road. Whistling, twirling my feather, feeling buoyant, except … there was that mysterious smell again, growing stronger, a smothered scent. I sniffed the feather in my hand; no, not that. The feather smelled like a night in the forest, a naturally pungent smell. This other, very different odor increased with every step until it was a full-throttle stench. The first vehicles I’d seen that day roared past. I’d arrived at a perfect railroad crossing gate with its red lights, complex hinges, and long straight wood. And then, to my left, I saw, like a nightmarish mirage, the source of the stench: a monstrous chicken factory.
KEEP OUT. BIO-SEALED , read one sign in flaming red. Another sign: GOLD KIST POULTRY CENTER . Behind the signs was an absurdly manicured lawn, like an estate photo from Town & Country , and a dozen or more “houses” — long, rectangular warehouses for the poultry.
By now the smell was almost unbearable. On the warehouses, circular fans blew out feathers and the stench of chicken waste. These chicken houses were identical to the others I’d seen on the drive to Jackie’s. They each “did” tens of thousands of birds a day, feeding the Gold Kist empire. (Gold Kist was the country’s third-largest chicken processor until it was purchased in 2007 by the even larger Pilgrim’s Pride. Gold Kist kept its name; the combined company is the world’s biggest of its kind, surpassing Tyson.) Mike Thompsontold me that, in addition to mutilating their chickens through beak searing, tail docking, and ear cutting, Gold Kist was experimenting with featherless chickens to eliminate inefficient plucking, along with beakless chickens that couldn’t peck at each other, something they tend to do as they go nuts over being confined to a tiny dark space their whole lives. When chickens peck at each other, they spoil what they are to us: meat.
Later, out of curiosity, I would visit an industrial chicken factory, one of a hundred throughout that part of North Carolina, nearly all of them producing poultry for giant companies like Gold Kist. The first thing I noticed was how dark they are. Factory farming began in the 1920s soon after the discovery of vitamins A and D; when these vitamins are added to feed, animals no longer require exercise and sunlight for growth. This allowed large numbers of animals to be raised indoors year-round. The main problem that occurred with this kind of intensive confinement was disease, but in the 1940s the development of certain antibiotics took care of that. Unfortunately, factory farming causes suffering and pain for animals and is a scourge to the environment. I couldn’t believe the suffocating ammonia smell inside. Around me, thousands of birds were caged so tightly that they weren’t able to
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