ALMOST TO TONGANOXIE
The herd on the north side of the highway—
I noticed to my minor shock last week—
has calved. Where
before it consisted
of uniformly-sized brown beasts,
sometimes all facing the same direction,
sometimes chest-deep in the cattle pond
or curving around to stay in the shade,
the herd is now made of unlike elements—
half the grown ladies, and half
knob-kneed calves who tend to stay close.
I can’t help but imagine
the ladies are feeling unweighted
and more like themselves. I can’t
stop enjoying the sight of calf and mother,
familiar from Arkansas days—
heaving their heads
into their mothers’ udders just before nursing—
it's like when I see a child close in age
to one of my own children
and certain gestures are from a script I know.
Meanwhile the herd on the south side
of the interstate is still pregnant.
The big ladies lumber, and I can’t help imagining
how their feet must hurt.
Calve, we say,
of a glacier, when pieces break off into the ocean,
and it is like that with the cows, as if
a brown shard of their own flesh
has dropped free to run on its own.
The still-pregnant herd gets moved, the pasture
is empty, weeks go by.
Then one day, the herd is back:
mamas and babies,
large and small, all in a lovely,
mutually-resembling shade of brown.
