POEMS

SELLING UP

The last are gone. I have called up
the yellow heifers from the field,
their coats crisp against winter,
and sold them away. It is gain and loss.
Their absence is like a fasting.

This morning a rainbow planted
its shaft full into the cropped grass
and I thought foolishly of Noah
alone in the ark, an empty bucket
in his hand and nothing to do,

and wondered what he would have missed
the most, hay smells or slop and steam
of dung, or the way the old cow
could speak under her breath to the new calf,
or a curled yellow poll to scratch.

. . . THE BUS

. . . BEING WEASEL