The Atonement of Holsteins

from Field Stones
by Robert Kinsley

In April, from the pasture just South of the barn
the voices call-out to the warm spring air,
to the barnyard, to the Holsteins,
to the sudden pricking up of ears.

They have been waiting it seems all their lives
through winter's dark, in the musk of their own beings,
in the dim light of the single-celled stalls.
Now the sweet intonations, the hum and flow.

When my father unlatches the gate
they leap into greenness, they leap with the bodies of joy,
there in our pasture, in April, in black and white,
angels on this day, not far from the edge of all sadness.