Brian R. Young --In Praise of the Cow

1.
Star watcher, source of the Milky Way, unflinching gazer,
you are The Thinker not carved by human tools,
the patient mother and father, the worrier of cud, the muller.

You are the choir of gently humming mills,
the thunder cloud, the observer
of the sun as it falls and rises.

You are exposed to the elements, yet impervious.
You are the restless chorus the crickets ignore.
Blessed giver of fecundity, it was you

who conceived the first numbers—one
and two—it was you who kept count—one two,
one two—of the steps, and though others

have gone on to count higher, it is you
who keeps the first numbers
for when they return. Your heart

of iron knows they will. You are
the cliffs by the ocean of clover.

Weave Magazine