On the Edge of Common Sense

“It’s for you,” his darlin’ told him as he lay back in the chair

For a well deserved siesta. Ugh, it wasn’t really fair.

It was Chuck, his nearest neighbor – did he have to call right now?

Millard took the phone and listened, “Are you sure that it’s my cow?”

As if he’d changed his brand last week or something equally absurd

Like the F.B.I. was posing as a member of his herd

Or an alien invasion took possession of his place

And planned to infiltrate the earth as cows from outer space.

But no easy explanation seemed to ease his heavy load

Chuck said, “Better come and get her, she’s a’grazin’ on the road.”

Saddled up, he hit the highway and broke into a jog

With his wife not far behind him in the pickup with the dog.

He could spot the cow’s location from within a half a mile

Cars were backed up to the corner, everybody wore a smile.

Helpful tourists waved and hollered, horsemen galloped to and fro

Swingin’ ropes like polo players, someone takin’ video.

Millard rode into the melee as the cow turned up the lane.

She trompled through the clothesline draggin’ laundry like a train

Through the hogwire to the garden, through the hotwire to the corn,

‘Cross the rows with corn stalks flyin’, laundry hangin’ off her horn

There were fifteen mounted riders rattlin’ through the stubble field,

Millard got a rope around her but he knew his fate was sealed

When he felt the horn knot grabbin’ and the saddle slip an inch…

He remembered he’d forgotten to retighten up his cinch.

He was still there in the saddle but it now sat on the neck.

We should pause and take reflection while we visualize the wreck

(pause)

Millard peeled off the equine like a dirty undershirt

He was still tall in the saddle when his boot heel’s hit the dirt

You could think of water skiing. You could think of Roto-Till

But when fifteen mounted riders mash you flat, it’s all downhill

Millard watched from his position in the furrow that he’d plowed

While the cow crashed through the hotwire, disappearin’ in the crowd.

There the band of merry revelers in gesture grandiose

Lashed up the draggin’ rope somehow, around a solid post.

The crowd began to dissipate. It was over, they could sense

Leavin’ Millard to apologize to Chuck about his fence.

Chuck was gracious. Millard thanked him for his helpfulness and such

But it seemed like Chuck enjoyed it…just a little bit too much.

But he really couldn’t blame him. When a loose cow wreck occurs

It’s a miserable fiasco, ’less, of course, it isn’t yers!

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