Those Mornings

from Field Stones
by Robert Kinsley

My father's Holsteins
stood shoulder to
shoulder in the fenced-in
yard, anomalies
taking shape in
the coming
light. Their slow
and steady breathing, rising
smoke in the air, like factories
along the river, firing-up at the start
of day. Inside we
wander the stanchions, whitewashed
timbers, thick and heavy in our own
desires, milking the future
our lives would surely
resemble, years from now,
not this, not here in this
nothingness of farm. When we
open the doors, the cows,
surge and enter, warm,
ready, alive.