After Evening Milking

TAIL swinging like a walking stick to lop
A timothy, and casually chewing gum,
The Jersey ambles from stripping. Kittens lap
Pearls from the grass, quick tongue around each gem —
White milk, green grass, red tongue. Our eased cow goes
Like Dickens meandering in Fleet, a novel done,
Leaving the reader to it. Critic geese
Mock the familiar waddle. Above his den
Behind the silo (part of the farmyard group,
But wild and with strange eyes) the woodchuck stands
Observing the old cow move where shadows grip
Our pasture. Sky, the mightier stranger, stuns
The farm to drowsiness and having brought
Dark to the world, triumphantly is bright.