Burning a Dead Heifer

This body burning here is not the fire I’d choose,
Though my grandmother said, they who have must lose,

And I must keep in step with things the way they are,
But she was a promising calf with deep red coat and star.

I found her stiff and cold in a corner of the shed
like everybody else we farmers claim our dead.

Now all is resigned to fire and the purifying air
Even the feed she ate and our labor and our care,

And the seed that grew the hay, the absence of another
Cow in her stanchion place, calves she will not mother.

Time will take them all, I watch the ashes blow
In a warm patient wind that worries the winter snow.