I’m watching black heifers
on dry blond grass
mill around water, salt and mineral —
slow motion contentment,
they have begun
to move like cows,
bodies thickening,
they plod deliberately
towards the open gate
to the near hills where
tall feed waves
for their attention.
I imagine turning the virgin
bulls out in ninety days,
the teenage antics,
the final settling of the seed
and the cash-flow we’ll surely need
twenty-one months from now.
drycrikjournal 