Friesian

Cups clacked on saucers, logs snapped and gulped fiercely fizzing flames,

and the cat settled on an upended hat on the couch.

Slumping in his great coat, he hunched into the grainy snow;

The chill stung his nose red and the snow crusted his hat white.
Skulking into the black of the hay-floored slated lean-to,

the old tan collie implied she had better eggs to suck.

He looked like a horse hanging his head out of the hard wind.

He did not waste words or talk when he’d rather be silent.
He would buck even blasting blizzards to check his cattle.
There was the soft sound of rubber boot-heels scuffing the snow.

His steps potholed the piled-up drifts duning the sunken lane.
The shawl of whiteness in clear air put him on a fine edge;

then his beard-stubbled cheeks paled and his squinting eyes clouded:

A branch of the felled tree had pierced the cowshed’s iron skin.

Now a meat slab the cow had a gape where her face had been.

The herd stood easy in their stalls, side-jawing, chewing cud.

He cuffed his hat back on his head, staring at the Friesian.
Summer after summer she had been his best milk yielder.

The snow had the yellow of melting when he buried her.

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