Milking Pilgrimage
The trees lean out, straining
Their dry leaves fly free
like a hail of Zulu spears.
Bored, I toss small stones
and savour their short flights
in defiance of the westerly wind.
I Turn away from the sting,
from the drought busted pastures,
and a sky scoured by dust.
Along the fence line,
coming up from the gully,
the black and whites meandering.
In long ambling bovine lines,
following the tracks, cut deep,
when the soils were dark and sticky.
The milkers stagger, their thick necks
bent in a mulish battle
against that dry killing wind.
One treads softly after another,
as they climb that long slope,
a journey, repeated their entire lives
Slow, quiet and resolute,
on their afternoon pilgrimage
to those rattling iron sheds.
To the heat, and the smells
of silage, sweet warm milk,
and dark, grass fed shit.
They file past me,
Their bursting udders beat rhythm
between their stained white legs.
The last dawdling milker
Hurries to catch her sisters
Waiting for her up at the sheds.
The dust plasters my shirt against me
and I wonder at those dull dark eyes
and scoff at that dim-witted gaze.
Suddenly, my hat is stolen
by that the damned westerly wind
and cursing I chase it through the dust.
Defeated, in those broken paddocks,
I begrudgingly envy the milkers
and their lofty bovine enlightenments.
