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Dave Bonta
For hours now the grownups had kept at it:
a scarcely modulated piano roll of talk
as steady as an all-day rain. At last
we bolted out the back where
the corn came almost to the door,
the tassels shining like epaulets
in the late afternoon sun.
We bushwhacked through the knobby-
kneed ranks, crouched in weedless furrows
to burst from cover with rebel yells
& Hollywood whoops of the wounded
until someone let loose with
a scream that sounded too real–
Vultures! Barely missing us
as they sailed out from a ragged
knot of trees we hadn’t counted on:
Go and be hanged, we call
to a clerk, to a schoolmaster,
to two cows in the wood,
to God, to children, to the man
that hangs on Shooter’s Hill,
filthy flesh shrunk to his bones.
I had in my cabin
that dun cow, paradox:
that the sea was good at ninepins.
That we hear for our instruments—
locks singing to the blacksmith.
box turtle
dignified despite the mushroom
on his chin
far pasture
the slow rearrangement
of cows
watering hole
the sky’s reflection in each
deep hoof print
Something inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.
Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools
A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,
She scorns a pasture withering to the root.
She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten
The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten.
She leaves them bitten when she has to fly.
She bellows on a knoll against the sky.
Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.
hazy summer morning
the slow walk of the cow
along the fence
What! Roses growing in a meadow
Where all the cattle browse?
I’d think they’d fear the very shadow
Of daddy’s big rough cows.
The rector's attic window is a light,
Set high on shelf for all the folk to see ;
His garden's windy-dim as it can be,
Where grow tall flags, some purple and some white.
The next house, too, holds one pane clearly red;
Three roofs beyond, the vane's a rosy flare;
Milk-heavy, slow, through the exquisite air,
The cows go tankling-tinkling to the shed.
Lost loveliness is broken down the wind;
Lost laughters fleet along the blur of wall; —
The cows go tankling to the barnyard near; —
And cloudy-pale, the shaken flowers behind,
The rector sees, through tears that aching fall,
His little daughter, dead this many a year.
LADY MEADOW,
Coquetting there with noon,
You balance and sway your rustling trees
Like crisp brocade hoop-skirts.
Over your curling gold of buttercups
You powder thick the daisy-petals,
And near the pond.
Iris-lashed, heaven-reflected —
Yet not too near —
You flaunt serenely,
One black cow.
Reclining;
Much as a Royal favorite wears
Her patch.
Beneath the smiling blue of her arch eye.
Through the sheltering sycamores
Blows the wild wind from the shores,
And the nations of the wheat
Bow and sway before his feet.
Where the far fields fade, and die
In the shining of the sky,
Right across the spacious plain
He is gone, and back again.
He will ruffle, as they browse,
Those old meadow-gods, the cows;
He will toss, like prancing steeds,
All the beanfields and the reeds,
Whilst the scattered clouds on high
Speed like galleons through the sky.
We alone are safe indoors,
Sheltered by the sycamores.
When supper time is almost come,
But not quite here, I cannot wait,
And so I take my china mug
And go down by the milking gate.
The cow is always eating shucks
And spilling off the little silk.
Her purple eyes are big and soft--
She always smells like milk.
And Father takes my mug from me,
And then he makes the stream come out.
I see it going in my mug
And foaming all about.
And when it's piling very high,
And when some little streams commence
To run and drip along the sides,
He hands it to me through the fence.
If it were only still!--
With far away the shrill
Crying of a cock;
Or the shaken bell
From a cow's throat
Moving through the bushes;
Or the soft shock
Of wizened apples falling
From an old tree
In a forgotten orchard
Upon the hilly rock!
Oh, grey hill,
Where the grazing herd
Licks the purple blossom,
Crops the spiky weed!
Oh, stony pasture,