Surprise

Looking at cows in their high-roofy roomy

Windy home, mid-afternoon idling,

Late winter, near spring, the fields not greening,

The wind North-East and sickening, the hay

Shrinking, the year growing. The parapets

Of toppled hay, the broken walls of hay,

The debris of hay. The peace of cattle

Mid-afternoon, cud-munching, eyelids lowered.

The deep platform of dung. Looking at cows

Sharing their trance, it was an anomalous

Blue plastic apron I noticed

Hitched under the tail of one cow

That went on munching, with angling ears. A glistening

Hanging sheet of blue-black. I thought

Of aprons over ewes' back-ends

To keep the ram out till it's timely. I thought

Of surgical aprons to keep cleanliness

Under the shit-fall. Crazily far thoughts

Proposed themselves as natural, and I almost

Looked away. Suddenly

The apron slithered, and a whole calf's

Buttocks and hind-legs---whose head and forefeet

Had been hidden from me by another cow---

Toppled out of its mother, and collapsed on the ground.

Leisurely, as she might be leisurely curious,

She turned, pulling her streamers of blood-tissue

Away from this lumpish jetsam. She nosed it

Where it lay like a still-birth in its tissues.

She began to nibble and lick. The jelly

Shook its head and nosed the air. She gave it

The short small swallowed moo-grunts hungry cows

Give when they stand suddenly among plenty.