My friend Shelley just shared with me a lovely poem by Anne Sexton, Snow.

Sexton’s poem closes:

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today, God gives milk
and I have the pail.

Responsorial Psalm After Anne Sexton’s Snow, in Honour of Summer’s Cows

life is good.

god is not my milkcow. but still

life is good.

and i have known some godly milkcows

aspects of divinity glinting

from hoof and horn and eye

humour in their well-aimed tails

flanks swelled

like buddha’s belly

against my cheek

– thus i have no need to seek the buddha

in meditation, i have leaned against

warm rumbling goddess bellies

finding the rhythm

in hands, breath, voice

to match their heaven-scented air

the sure, epochal  grind of bottom teeth

cows need own no upper incisors

how the goddesses sway across the fields

clover in their lips

hips cloaked in daring flies

(not a snowflake among them)

tails to clear the air.

no, god is not my milkcow

but my milkcow is divine

and life is good.

have you seen the cows

at coffeeklatch?

out on the hillside

maundering along the swell

of ridgetop in the sun

carefree and flirtatious

for one among their number

will always take her turn

to gather close the sistren’s calves

and lie in stately grandeur, in their midst

perhaps she teaches

chewing the cud

perhaps she shares old tales

of times long gone,

the auroch times.

see, even now, two bullcalves rise

and caper off with swaggering brows

to strut and butt and make believe

they are hairy, fierce and wild.

the old one burps and blinks

content, in knowing

they will soon enough come kneeling back

small square muzzles asking

where their mother’s udder might be

and the sistren, as if on command

will come, undulating  down the rise

each with eyes only for her own

and evening will settle

with its unbleached flies

buzzing counterpoint

to the tear, chew, rumble, belch

the green organic paean

of these queens of ruminant goddesshood

and life is good.

ams/Edmonton in the snow/December 12, 2013

For Blackie, Bossy, Socks, Bella, Ragus, Hattie and all the rest, especially the late, great Waffle.