Career

for Nachiketas Tether the cow to the post of your patience and wait First make ready the field in which you choose to let her loose There where no lilacs grow nor lotuses in the pond of your astrological gaze If you haven't enough cut-grass in the loft Make sure your sickle doesn't rake through touch-me-nots and lallang You may only prepare the pasturing ground You cannot make your cow browse in it all her dogged years her udder bitten fangs sunk in stealth milk mixed with venom milched in terror suckling in fear You may not clear your fields of toads snails snakes or centipedes They are the legitimate heirs of the land where you plan to graze your cow You may only tend to her when she comes home if she comes by her own will acknowledging not a master but an inherited contract thus you may milk her but at this appointed hour with this can two-spans-full if you give her fresh grass and barley before she goes 'cause she is bespoken to patience ©T.Wignesan 1992 April 18, 1992 [from the collection : back to background material, 1993]