There were a few dozen who occupied the field
across the road from where we lived,
stepping all day from tuft to tuft,
their big heads down in the soft grass,
though I would sometimes pass a window
and look out to see the field suddenly empty
as if they had taken wing, flown off to another country.

Then later, I would open the blue front door,
and again the field would be full of their munching
or they would be lying down
on the black-and-white maps of their sides,
facing in all directions, waiting for rain.
How mysterious, how patient and dumbfounded
they appear in the long quiet of the afternoon.

But every once in a while, one of them
would let out a sound so phenomenal
that I would put down the paper
or the knife I was cutting an apple with
and walk across the road to the stone wall
to see which one of them was being torched
or pierced through the side with a long spear.

Yes, it sounded like pain until I could see
the noisy one, anchored there on all fours,
her neck outstretched, her bellowing head
laboring upward as she gave voice
to the rising, full-bodied cry
that began in the darkness of her belly
and echoed up through her bowed ribs into her gaping mouth.

Then I knew that she was only announcing
the large, unadulterated cowness of herself,
pouring out the ancient apologia of her kind
to all the green fields and the gray clouds,
to the limestone hills and the inlet of the blue bay,
while she regarded my head and shoulders
above the wall with one wild, shocking eye.
~Billy Collins “Afternoon with Irish Cows”

In recognition of Cow Appreciation Day today:

Most of my life I have been surrounded by cows. I sat on their bony backs while my dad hand-milked our three Guernsey cows. I learned about their pastoral preferences by following their meandering paths through the fields and woods. I know all about their nosiness and their noisiness and their utter fascination with the antics of their humans.

Our family farm had Scottish Highland cattle and cross-breds for a time – raising calves meant monitoring our cows in heat. There isn’t anything else that sounds like a cow in heat. Nothing. Especially in the middle of the night.

During our farm stay travels in Ireland and Scotland a decade ago, we made a point to get to know the local bovines, just for comparison’s sake. Sure enough, the cows there were just as charming and curious as the ones at home, although a bit furrier with more interesting coloration.

We are currently providing temporary lodging for some young steers who need the run of some grassy acreage as they grow and fill out. They are quite content and not the least bit noisy. Having them here reminds me I’ve missed the sound of cows’ reassuring cud chewing, their soft flap of ear, their oval brown eyes, but most of all the acrobatics of a tongue that wraps itself around a clump of grass while grazing and can reach up and clean out a moist nose.

A wondrous creature: their cowness is the perfect combination of mystery and magnificence.

And I need to learn how to play the trombone…