Sunday, April 11, 2021

13,541. HAND OF HEARTS, HEAD OF HEELS

HAND OF HEARTS, HEAD OF HEELS
Without realizing anything, I somehow lost
the technicolor aspects of this life too: The
cow skull, dried and brittle, on the old farm
fence now seems merely black and white.
I wondered how it's nailed in place, and for
how many years it's held its weathered trace.
Of time, and incidentals, ghosts and shadows.
-
Seeming to try too hard, my own mind wanders
into thinking what of cows? Do they realize the
lineage and the space they take part in; that one
measure of years they're marked in? The schedules
and seasons and patterns of milking, birth, death.
All ruthless, yet all (merely) human? Perhaps
they don't even understand the waiting?
-
Dried and brittle, one old skull now : whatever
once prevailed, whatever matter once filled
that cranial cap, all gone as animal fodder and
morning's fair matter. Empty in place, and
harpooned to the top of a fencepost brace. If
we must stand, we must stand in sorrow?

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