A Cow at the Gallery
John Grey
The impressionists, absorbed by light,
had no time for bovines, those creatures,
heads bent into their food, too brown,
too solid for the fragments of a glance.
Not even the modern artists
worked them into their palettes,
no Picasso splitting those lumbering animals
into many faces or Warhol,
sacrificing a soup can or two
for a humble beast lowing in the fields.
Gallery after gallery is bereft
of lowered heads, munching jaws, contented bulb eyes,
fat bodies, hanging teats, noses sniffing away flies.
A cow visiting the Met say,
will see nothing of itself,
just wall upon wall of Mary holding baby Jesus.
He came to save mankind.
He never got around to farm animals.
had no time for bovines, those creatures,
heads bent into their food, too brown,
too solid for the fragments of a glance.
Not even the modern artists
worked them into their palettes,
no Picasso splitting those lumbering animals
into many faces or Warhol,
sacrificing a soup can or two
for a humble beast lowing in the fields.
Gallery after gallery is bereft
of lowered heads, munching jaws, contented bulb eyes,
fat bodies, hanging teats, noses sniffing away flies.
A cow visiting the Met say,
will see nothing of itself,
just wall upon wall of Mary holding baby Jesus.
He came to save mankind.
He never got around to farm animals.
John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink, and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Subject Matters, Between Two Fires, and Covert are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.