“Elegy for a Cow”

“An Elegy for a Cow” [An Elizabethan Sonnet by Paul Burgess]

A mockingbird’s demise is sad, no doubt,
But rarely does one raise a single brow—
No, not a man it seems does cry or pout—
When flies begin to feast upon a cow.
No thought is spared the weeping widowed bull
Who never could replace the love she gave,
Who lacks the milk to keep their children full,
Who can’t afford a spade to dig her grave,
Who knows, alas, his cherished, mooing mate
With leather tanners soon will have to meet—
Because it’s destiny, says the Book of Fate,
To be some guy or gal’s reclining seat—
Whose beefy bovine tears inscribe in soil
These lines produced by bullish sweat and toil.

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