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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR9kxeAcw6c&w=420&h=315]
Among Robert Graves’s best and most famous poems, “Dead Cow Farm” is in essence a war poem (Robert Graves served in WWI and saw heavy fighting) wherein his gentle cow symbolizes peace and calm.
It is, I think, a strange and lovely little poem.
Dead Cow Farm
An ancient saga tells us how
In the beginning the First Cow
(For nothing living yet had birth
But Elemental Cow on earth)
Began to lick cold stones and mud:
Under her warm tongue flesh and blood
Blossomed, a miracle to believe:
And so was Adam born, and Eve.
Here now is chaos once again,
Primeval mud, cold stones and rain.
Here flesh decays and blood drips red,
And the Cow’s dead, the old Cow’s dead.[Possibly related: View of a Pig]
About The Author
Ray Harvey
I was born and raised in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. I've worked as a short-order cook, construction laborer, crab fisherman, janitor, bartender, pedi-cab driver, copyeditor, and more. I've written and ghostwritten several published books and articles, but no matter where I've gone or what I've done to earn my living, there's always been literature and learning at the core of my life.
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And all this time I thought that I disliked poetry when the actual culprit was merely a shirt.
Moo Moo, Buckaroo.
Where do you find these great masks?!?
A shameless use of gratuitous, not to say salacious, sex. Wendy wants an 8×10 and two wallets.
I knew “pretty horses” were gorgeous, muscular creatures, but had not considered “dead cows” in the same category. Provides more motivation to determine that perfect adjective for which I have been searching.