2 Cows for Tax Purposes

Plowing Over the Pasture

Brand new neighborhood
Next to an empty lot,
Barbed wire fences
Separated men from beasts.

Two cows grazed placidly
While cattle egrets roamed
And waited for morsels—
Bugs and beetles in cow paddies.

This bovine duo
Cropped the grasses,
Clipped the bushes
With gnawing teeth.

My friendly neighbors 
Chewed the cud
Without a care—
Until they disappeared.

Did the cows survive?
Did they relocate?
Or were they sent
To the slaughterhouse?

After the hurricane
And the floods receded
Bulldozers came
And buried the grass.

One lonely oak,
My only shade—
They ripped up,
Clear down to the roots.

I wept at this tragedy.
As they lay waste
The last vestiges
Of wild prairie.

Another neighborhood
Stands in the place
Where the two cows
Once grazed.