The cattle bowed their heads, lowed, razed the barn,
trundled through the struts like bricks
on spindles, crushed the fencepost wicks
before the sunrise crimson weir
that guttered in the ford below the farm.

The farmer caught the crash, but cold with years
stood cloaked in oily overalls,
too spent to peer beyond the walls
of stone laid by the calloused hands
that picked at lobes of cauliflower ears.

The ears of corn gave voice as down in bands
they went, each swath a tale of toil,
each husk alive with loamy soil
now mangled to its budded core
and mauled by broad insatiate brigands.

A gander honked, a pig, a goat and more
until a shrill cacophony
erupted through the homestead. Free
to gorge, the livestock flocked in floods
to lose themselves in maize beyond the shore.

To shore the cottage gate, the farmer gloved
his hands and hammered in a stake.
He rose and wandered in to wake
his wife, but coldly comforted
in thinking all he lost, he'd never loved.

NaPoWriMo 2005, April 13