But the Bull Was Goldie
What they told you is not true.
I bought a white bull
And a calf, black allover
But with white patches at her sides.
I bought a white bull,
Because they smeared the first goldie bull
With dark mud & cow dung,
And the colour they named the bull
Was not the one I bought.
I bought the piebald calf
Because the little bell around its neck
Enticed me to call her a musician;
The instrumentalist in an ensemble
Of moos.
Do you remember the man
They say they shot by accident,
After they had a secret meeting?
I could see the tail of the lie,
Clear as the red tint of the man’s blood
On cracked earth.
Next time, watch how they speak, boy.
They speak like they are doing you a favour
By telling you that your skin is precious,
But you should give the entire sun
A black eye, with your hardest fist,
Because to them, the sun blurs the shine
Of your skin,
But they are your good friends.
The man who ran away from their cattle camp
Could have chosen to pluck
Inflated leeches off his skin
Over taking praise while his blood trickles
Into oblivion,
But they say he ran away and left
The morsel they fed him in their hands.
—–
The Black Ox
Perhaps, we could not have come here,
Flanked by two white slopes,
Where the cold soaks our skins
And all around us,
And bits of ice spray our coats,
Except many years ago,
Matur had an affair with Mila
With brown hair & brown eyes.
Mila travelled to Africa from an Alpine town.
In a village by the Nile, the two swaggered
In mud-stained gumboots,
Provoking whispers and rumors,
Around farmers tilling their fields.
They raised two cattle: one black ox
& a fat white calf.
Two years after Mila travelled back
To her hometown,
Matur took along his bride price
To her father in Grindelwald:
A white calf and a black ox,
All long horned and tall.
Now, we, his children rear the offspring
Of the black ox and the white calf,
Between two white slopes.
There was a time we saw on television
A sunlit African savannah,
& Brown grass swaying below the knees
Of boys herding cows.
——
Poems © Marial Awendit
Image: MS Copilot remixed