Poetry |

“A Georgic for Sally and Darla”

A Georgic for Sally and Darla

 

My friend Sally got a cow named Darla from her grandchildren

last Christmas. She took the cow for a ceremonial spin

around the indoor riding ring at her farm.

Sally held a candy-cane-patterned lead line in her hand.

Darla wore a red bow around her neck and an ivy halter

around her square head. A square head seems

to be a desirable trait among purchasers of bovines.

Sally never cared too much for your kind

of kindness when she was out there in her snowsuit

giving riding lessons on February nights.

She cared more about her horses and how you treated them

than you, which is its own kindness, or if not kindness,

exactly, something we might call humane.

She cared more for how you treated them than you,

dissected the ruminants’ sentence so she could

tell you how to act. A cow gnaws on a cud of clover

at Sally Rushlow’s farm. No contingency of the subordinate

clause in her instruction: don’t dig your heels

into the animal’s side; don’t jerk on the bitted mouth;

sit up; equitate. “Equitate” may not be a real verb,

but you didn’t get cute about prescriptive grammars

and the imperative syntax of equitation, not with Sally.

None of us loved her then, but now that we’re grown

we agree those were the best times of our lives,

which might lead you to believe we’re lachrymose

and bitter, or simply bored to tears. Sad people.

I myself wonder if those memories have been cowed

by the treacle of time. We know you can make

a cow of memories as you can make a verb of cow,

as you can horse any lexicon into absurdity.

Although it has two eyes, a memory is a myopic animal

with a square head and outfacing eyes. Treacle is the honey

lathered over time. Just as a big house surrounded by acres

of pasture can be made to stand for something

more than itself, a cow or horse can come

in the guise of a gift, that surplus of the giver’s self.

In the ring, the stapled ribbons

flit while children learn to trot the serpentine

and care for what they can’t afford to own.

Contributor
Cal Freeman

Cal Freeman’s work has appeared in Posit, The Journal, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Drunken Boat, and Southwest Review. He is the recipient of The Devine Poetry Fellowship (judged by Terrance Hayes) and the  Passages North’s Neutrino Prize. He serves as music editor for The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review and regularly reviews collections of poetry for the program “Stateside” on Michigan Public Radio.

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