A Georgic for Sally and Darla
My friend Sally got a cow named Darla from her grandchildren
last Christmas. She took the cow for a ceremonial spin
around the indoor riding ring at her farm.
Sally held a candy-cane-patterned lead line in her hand.
Darla wore a red bow around her neck and an ivy halter
around her square head. A square head seems
to be a desirable trait among purchasers of bovines.
Sally never cared too much for your kind
of kindness when she was out there in her snowsuit
giving riding lessons on February nights.
She cared more about her horses and how you treated them
than you, which is its own kindness, or if not kindness,
exactly, something we might call humane.
She cared more for how you treated them than you,
dissected the ruminants’ sentence so she could
tell you how to act. A cow gnaws on a cud of clover
at Sally Rushlow’s farm. No contingency of the subordinate
clause in her instruction: don’t dig your heels
into the animal’s side; don’t jerk on the bitted mouth;
sit up; equitate. “Equitate” may not be a real verb,
but you didn’t get cute about prescriptive grammars
and the imperative syntax of equitation, not with Sally.
None of us loved her then, but now that we’re grown
we agree those were the best times of our lives,
which might lead you to believe we’re lachrymose
and bitter, or simply bored to tears. Sad people.
I myself wonder if those memories have been cowed
by the treacle of time. We know you can make
a cow of memories as you can make a verb of cow,
as you can horse any lexicon into absurdity.
Although it has two eyes, a memory is a myopic animal
with a square head and outfacing eyes. Treacle is the honey
lathered over time. Just as a big house surrounded by acres
of pasture can be made to stand for something
more than itself, a cow or horse can come
in the guise of a gift, that surplus of the giver’s self.
In the ring, the stapled ribbons
flit while children learn to trot the serpentine
and care for what they can’t afford to own.