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Leaning Against a Cow
She is sitting,
front legs under her reddish-brown mass.
When I think of her shape
it is always her belly I see most.
The bulging warmth,
the mastication, her on-going digestion.
I'm a boy,
the large cow is my meaty lean-to.
One hot summer afternoon can last for years,
on one such a year
I was resting my back
on her bovine flank's, she did not seem to care.
I really think she wanted to feel me listening
to her giant belly.
A drowsy time took its rest also.
Bees buzzed, but far away.
High flying gees made the sky speak.
Listening to her massive body, I think
I melded into her life. Her ongoing
industrial mashing
of moist clods of vegetable materiel.
The rhythmic digestive process
seemed to me to be almost musical.
When she farted, it was as though
she had turned roughage to water,
and water into wine.
I could smell the spirit of the grass,
and strangely,
I could within my own small form,
feel the mutable mystery of the land
as it churned grain into bread,
our meat to spirit.
Copyright ©
Eric Ashford
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