Calving

There she stands with her broad back and a birth-

bulge stomach. We wait an anticipating hour,

leaning at the door, patient as a January night-star.

But no stir of the calf inside the belly is there;

she just stands at the post, her head rattling the chains,

her black globule eye curious at our restlessness;

and the dog, hind-leg sits by the dung-stained door

in the feathery drizzle of rain.

Then you decide to force the birth,

and you plunge into her, up to your elbow

and up the narrow passage of her;

and two slimy-creamed hoofs you drag out,

and we wait for her to heave a birth push,

but she just stands there in calm insolence,

her black square head askance,

her eyes insouciantly squinting at us.

We loop the hair-ragged rope both ends to a hoof,

cleaned now, jerk tight behind the hocks,

and we pull and hold. A sudden wind

whooshes from the back of her,the water burst

of her membrane-thread hangs to the soiled hay.

We pull again; but she holds, rock-planted to the floor,

head straining at the post and we heave

and hold again till a mouth snout sneaks out

and his black frightened eye gapes at us screaming: NO!

And we pull low and hold to the strain

until the full wet head slides out so fast her

belly sucks in with the strain, and he

still screeching: NO! his rump and back plops

onto the bed of hay, soiled in womb-slime.

With deft speed of hand you cradle his head

onto your knee and forcept your thumb and forefinger

into his slit mouth,and clear the gung-filled gap of his nostrils

and stand him up on unsteady legs to taste

the teat of beastings; but he slipsand slithers,

a grey glob of wet soap on four hoofs crying: NO!

and NO! again, until the mother licks into the long

wet back of him and ruffles the coal blue coat with

her grey sand-paper tongue; then he stands up,

unsteady still, his mouth groping for the teat

and the gulp-suck of yellow milk. Crouching by them

I gaze out to the darkness, into the drizzling rain

drifting across the beam of light over the cow house door,

and wonder how our dog conjectures the scene:

this wet-matted calf sucking into the emerging dawn.

………………………………………………………

First published in ‘Voices from the Land’ (Ryan Dennis, editor), the poem ‘Calving’ came from my very first experience of helping my father ‘pull the calf’ in the early hours of the morning during the calving season. The poem is not only a celebration of birth but also of loss.

The No! in the poem is the shock and maybe anger of the newborn calf leaving the comfort and safety of its mother and entering an unknown, dark and for the calf inhospitable world. But, thankfully, the maternal instinct to soothe and care was nearby, and so the birth was a smooth one.

Jimmy O’Connell, though born in Dublin, spent his youth on the family farm in County Offaly. He is that rare breed: a “culchieised Dub”! A UCD graduate, Jimmy has been writing and performing his work for many years. A collection of his poetry ‘Although it is Night’ was published by Wordonthestreet in 2013. Also published are two novels ‘Batter the Heart’ and ‘Death in Garrydangan’; the latter is available in Just Books, Mullingar, at Amazon.co.uk and the Eason website.

Jimmy is currently working on a play ‘The Nun of Kenmare’ based on the life of Margaret Cusack,

Inklings Writing Group meet on Tuesdays at 10.30am in the Annebrook House Hotel.