Jody Too

Jody Too

Jody was nine, her namesake calf
but newly-born, soon shorn
of his vitality, to be a steer
and hers alone, for just a year;
it was for both of them to grow,
and know of love. Thus
with her brush and comb
and her aplomb above the skin;
she rushed the hours on
until the day the Four-H show
crowned Jody Too in blue.

It was the day
that Jody learned to weep,
for champions are made
not just of love alone,
but masterly caress of shank and bone,
organic marbling, and charts
and sleeplessness;
there were dark forshadowings,
insistent silent taunts forced back
upon the trip home from the fair...
yet there were weeks beyond, to dare.

She knew she could not dwell
upon the end that she must not ignore.
There was no store of stoicism
in her heart, no lust for sacrifice,
no practiced separation might be there
to strengthen her, prepare her
for the market day when she could see
her father readying the truck for those
magnificent black steers,
(nine hundred pounds enhanced
each frame) and watch them
on the ramp.

From her bedroom window all of them
were seen on board, then Jody Too,
when eyes still dry, she turned her face away,
her own tear-drenched goodbye an hour before.
Her father had not known, came in,
and in bucolic wisdom, thus
invited her to watch them go.
She shook her head, there was
no consolation for her dread.
"Dad, Jody knew!"
~