Cows
black
angus cows are not lazy feeders
they will
wander the paddocks migratory hierarchical
they will stay here forever like you
johnny
who would not kill them now for johnny had said
he
would never kill those few last cows the fog
clears we receive cows dark angels they
emerge
from mist where the eucalyptus drown
they call
this place their own a cow can
be heard
downwind forever
this brilliant morning they
lived they held it like a cow would in
the sway
of the velvet hips some cattle who know
this place
have the breeze as a body the boulders as
hearts
their
milk lines of mothers and calves like streams
flooding the sunlight this is first light after
the
magpies sang the big mob of cows were the first
to receive the sun at Rylstone on their
fat black
backs! i
stood before them those black nuns who
did not want me there without johnny so i didnt
stay long the lines of light and shadow blew down
the slope being the hoofs of the cows bringing the
hoofs to
my feet we all stood along the hill like
whispers bellowing in the broad daylight it was as
though we were standing alongside a giant free
falling wheel propelled by sun birdsong that
rotated the
bands of light and shadow to where we
stood and back into the wide blue sky this light
from
the cows is coming towards me in rotational bands
along the complex timeline of the Rylstone property
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