The Cows

We can see that old man by the river. His
herd drinking from tepid waters. His hands
worn down from eons of toil under a hot
bleeding sun. As he labours, he sees the dubious
movements of sheep, cows and their obsequious

hate. As they drink, he works, his horse’s
sweet laced hide giving off the fetid
germinations of his agony. How long had he
watched the seasons roll by? Like hay bales
on a windy day, caught on a tempest of

chaos. A cow sounded its jovial cry. Perhaps,
he felt safe amongst the eucalyptus trees,
their branches dangling like arcane jewelry.
maybe as he watched his herd drink. He
might have imagined, orphic leaches

draining blood his tortured river veins. At
first it would have only slithered softly by
the reeds. His horse’s heart, a beating like
the tax mans door knock. It would have
only come for a drink by the river a

pernicious sip of water. He was found by
the trees. Hardest hit by the tirade of cloven
wrath. His bones percolating out of a ruptured
corpse. There was no one telling him what
was to come. To beware the enigmatic

malovance of cows. How long did he lie there?
Years of toil has surmounted to this, crying
for the help that would never come. The
herd had come with the force of a gashing
typhoon. The agony of the landscape

branding him with the mark of sub ordinance
pain to which the hooves keep adding, pound
by pound, hoof by hoof. Later, twilight’s first
touch kissed the backs of cows. Would they
ride out the next day? To round up that

nefarious herd, slow hungry mouths gently
chewing the growth of green grass. They
fare welled him with the hum of abattoir
contraptions, their prayers coming like
branding irons upon dead flesh marking

death with death. Summer rain feel
like regulations, upon sleeping cows. His
toil eroding under the beating droplets
breaking though the closed sky. Who would
have ushered in bone encrusted hooves,

rancorous instruments of his demise, without
raising glass in remembrance? Nobody wanted
their fields soiled with their muddy foot prints .
A cow flicked its tail in the rain. They knew
what had taken him down to that stream, to

wait by the banks and listen to the sound of
hissing from the reeds. They know that stricken
denounced face.


This poem is based on two poems by the brilliant Judith Beveridge called 'Exsanguination' and 'Mother and Child'