Hip-humping on the baked-earth track they go,
a bovine symphony of movement, its unity of theme
their single-filed direction, individually expressed
in the contrapuntal motion of their bodies’ parts.
Their cloven hooves on plodding, piston-legs reciprocate;
udders heavy, swaying pendulously, rolling full;
likewise, their tails swing easily at rest,
each one dependent from each skewbald rump,
yet poised to swish fly-whiskingly across each midge-inflicted back.
One turns her head, impassively regards
her stark, dark partner, projected on the grass,
on station with her steady progress by her side,
inexorably increasing its distorted length so soon
with each passed minute of the arid afternoon.

They amble past the shadowed cool interiors of ancient barn and byre,
whose sun-bleached, time-washed walls
have clustered round that buzzing, insect-busy yard,
and stood beneath their russet, clay-baked tiles,
supported by oak rafter, beam and truss across the centuries,
since cavalier and roundhead here crossed swords.
There is a painted permanence in portrayal here,
where time seems motionless, in pastoral smugness sealed,
ignorant and incredulous of impending change;
a scene more suited to some beribboned chocolate-box!
And yet there’s something in the movement of those painted cows,
so competently captured by the artists brush,
that summons back the fascinated eye apace
to view once more their gentle, mobile grace.

Those cattle walked that way in nineteen fifty-four
to cross the threshold of their milking parlour, that same day in July
as I turned thirteen years and crossed my threshold of awareness into youth
then onward further, nourished by those emptied udders,
ushering in an unexpected age of change.
Those trees, on which the artist barely dwelled, were felled.
Where those cows so stately trod that track, they laid tarmac.
Above once paneless windows, double glazed, a garish hoarding now displays:
“Craft and Business Centre. Workshops with office space to let.
Hurry! Just three units left! triplewsdotdoubledutchdotcom
a freephone number and e-mail address.”
How glad I am my father, now sometime deceased, will never see
the unhurried rural idyll, whose image he created,
by corporate flagpoles so frenetically translated.