There once was a man from Green Bay
Who made it a habit each day
     To ****** an udder
     And churn his own butter,
Then go for a nap in the hay.

The cows float about,

bobbing in the green, ******* --


they hoist their tail sails.

by the light of the m👀n
in the blue @fterⁿ°°ⁿ
həy ****** ******
a cat p!ays a fiddle,
a li'l d●g nam'd Skiffle
laffs like fracking a nut house,
& a cøw jnmps
👁ver a runcible §poon)

A cow is a cow,

anywhere in the world she --


looks at you deeply.

One horizon all

round the green sea, here and there --


a cow sailing by.

The cows are mooing,

sheep are bleating, and the wind --


disperses the seeds.

Fearful cows. Proud buckets. Sequestered and barbed.
Three freckles. A constellating of anchors.
Violating space.
The long road travelled and the long road ahead.
Each length, perfect reflection of the other.
You are travelling as a mirror. Roving.
Violating time.
Swallowing hours. Draped. A shroud of volition.
The sky is still crying. The sea is angry.
You hear it sometimes, underneath the wind’s wails.
It can hear you. Sometimes. But always it sees.
Violating mind.
What it sees sends sun to sky and turns rain to
tears of joy, collected in proud buckets, that
drizzle down, dousing the faces of fearful cows.

Oh Brown-eyed Beauty
this morn, you look so forlorn
What has you so troubled?

Through daybreak haze, I
follow her gaze, hear her sigh
Why would they take him?

She takes one last look
as he is hung on the hook
then she resumes her graze

In bitter winds the little Pipistrelle bats
Flitter hither and thither
Into the hills,
Around tree-timber limbs
With brittle twigs.
They wing their way
In thrills
Of twists
And turns.

Meanwhile, deep down below
The cows moan,
Roaming through the range.
They moo while they chew the cud,
Ruminating their food
Grazed earlier from prairie meadows.

Through the long day
They are accompanied
By flocks of birds
Twittering and tweeting,
Much noisier than the bats.
A feather flung chorus
Singing operas and arias
Amongst the misty trees.

Word composers love these things:
Mother Nature wrapping us
In her arms
And filling the air
With sights and sounds
That sooth the soul,
Sending us soundly to sleep
While those bats
Come out to play.

Paul Butters

© PB 26\11\2020.