Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here by George N Wallace

Black Cattle 

in Golden Cornstalks, the

fresh White Snow from a mid-morning squall

blanketing each “haired up” back.

Good Mothers, 

feeding methodically among 

the post-threshing tangle of

golden leaves and stalks that protrude

from the now sparkling winter carpet.

Large warm bodies working away, 

making milk, puffing steam,

periodically pausing to nurse while, 

casting wary glances at the clean-up bull. 

Black Calves 

begin to run, butt, and kick up their heels, 

when a blessing of Wild Geese 

mills down among them

to glean the blowdown-bounty of

corn shatters and scatters under two layers of snow,

• that only they can reach.

All this under a widening deep blue sky 

That emerges from behind eastbound clouds.

Beauty alive, beyond approval, 

stitched together with shadows

from a low winter sun.

Ephemeral of course. Changing each moment,

even the close omnipresence of:

• Black Cattle, White Snow, Golden Corn 

pleases in new ways as the light

moves across the mountains, and beneath

the flowing procession of lenticular clouds

that portend tomorrow’s big wind.

Then, these calm Sim-Angus mothers and calvesTh

will likely nurse - before settling low in the lee 

below rows of grey and green trees,

out of the wind, in the warmth 

and cinnamon sugar light of cattails,

mashing long leaves, melting crusted snow

to make their oval beds as the heat from above

meets that from the ground below.

Come if you can.