Lone Cow in a Burning Village

How should I proceed ?

Is the image not enough ?

Why, you may ask, a cow ?

Could the poet not have chosen a dog

or a rabbit or a goat or a cat ?

Certainly, there are other animals

here in this brutal and bloody scene

loitering next to bodies

charred and disfigured

the very old and the very young

the innocent and those who dared

   to resist.

 

 

No, it is too late to amend this scene;

we are firmly set on our course.

Let us continue with the cow

gentle, hearty cow

a symbol through the ages

of abundance and fertility

its meat and milk and hide

life-sustaining to those poor souls

who once lived here.

Yes, let us settle on a cow - a lone cow

in a burning village

lowing at the flames...

flames that extinguished more than

the just the simple waters of life.

Old cow, slow and passive, rooted to the earth

who looked on in pitiful bewilderment

at the unfolding grey-blue dawn

when the troops and tanks rolled in

along a well-worn dusty track

harbouring Death in his chariot, swinging

   his greedy scythe.

 

 

What happened to our cow ?

Did it escape the raging fires ?

Was it spared the same destruction as those

   who once led it to pasture ?

You, dear reader, may now either shrug your shoulders

or bend your head in despair.

Who cares about a cow ?

Who cares about a village ?

Who cares if Death’s underlings fired a helicopter missile

into a school playground

   just for fun ?

We are capable of so many things – of pity

   and indifference

of shrugging our shoulders

of leading a cow to pasture

of harbouring Death

of lowing at the flames.