Not to Be Overlooked

We had a bull calf born premature,
never amounted to much, we kept him
in a small pen, remembered to feed him
and bed him down. Sort of a runt, he came
to be a fixture like forks and baskets.
Oh, we rubbed his head when we went by,
and checked on feed and water. But one day
when he was about six months old,
he backed off in his pen, took a run for it,
smashed the gate, hightailed it
through the barn knocking forks from
the racks, upset a basket of oats,
found an open basket of oats,
found an open door and ran wild around
the barnyard. It took four of us
to corral him and herd him back to his pen.
There he lay, quiet and serene as if
nothing had happened.
And I thought, I know folk like that
who have to show off just to prove,
I guess, that they are here.