Cows take things as they come.
They are big enough to command respect
but they don’t care whether they get it or not.
They care if there’s grass to eat.
They feel the sun and the rain.
They love their calves and accept their bulls
for who they are.
They speak in low resonant voices
that rise up from the depths
of their four stomachs.
They have four stomachs!
They know they have a place in this world
and don’t worry about what it is.
Not much pisses off a cow.
As she moves over the yellow hillside,
no other animal has the cow’s calm majesty.
See her lying in the shade: she knows
she’s the queen of something
but she doesn’t care if you know it or not.

Come,
let’s watch
the starlings dance
like a twisting net
in the pearl-gray
twilight: a billowing
black sheet, like waves
in the ocean,
the space
between each bird
a bubbling, 
boiling backdrop
that they draw
their patterns on,
swooping
and rolling
in the mercury-gray
of dusk.
Come, let’s watch them
make their twisting
shapes, each one
its own piece 
of the infinite.
Let’s watch them
dance
on evening’s threshold,
before they are lost
to the too-bright
night of man.

Give me your clouds
Your big clouds rising like cakes in the oven
Blue clouds heavy-bottomed, looming
High clouds scratched by wind
Clouds like a sun-bleached spine
 
I want white clouds billowing up
with a narrow sword-gray cloud
ripping through the middle
Clouds like cotton batting
Clouds like quilts
Wet clouds pulled apart by wind
 
I want steely clouds, pink clouds,
purple and apricot clouds
Clouds trooping like sheep
across a cool blue April sky
a puffy stray one
left behind by the herd
moving slowly away from the horizon
 
And I want shy clouds, too
Thin, modest clouds shaped
like a smile its wearer doesn’t know is there
Little eyelash clouds
Clouds like silk cocoons
Sheer slips of clouds wisping across
a dragon’s eye moon.