Boviform

Boviform: cow-shaped

My Connection: My dad grew up on a dairy farm in Montana. While we lived in Denver we would visit regularly and I have so many fond memories of our time spent at the farm. I especially loved getting to meet the calves and play among the hay bales. When I was ten we moved to Tennessee and visits to the farm became pretty infrequent. It's been just over a decade now since I last visited, but it is still a place that holds a lot of importance because of the family and love that it has come to symbolize.

My Poem:

Summertime, within hay bale forts we’d hide.

Bottle caps, dandelions, and bluebunch

In Big Sky, begging for a tractor ride,

Settling for sipping sun tea after lunch.

The Holsteins grazing grass in a green hue

Bright as Crayola, against a background

Of snow capped peaks piercing the brilliant blue.

Yellow plumed meadowlarks, their warbles sound

In a haven of ponderosa pine

Beside the white farm house, where one woman

Raised seven children and her son reared nine

On sweet raw milk from a stainless steel can

***

And one of the seven was my father

The nine just a handful of my cousins.

Yearly visits turned to hardly ever

One state away became half a dozen.

How can a place that’s mostly memories

And is more than a thousand miles away

Still mean so much and leave a missing piece?

A boviform one that can’t be replaced.

Suppose a heart is kind of like a tree,

It grows and stretches branches heavenward

But down beneath what you and I can see

Roots reach to anchor love when life gets hard

Author's Note: This piece was created for Penny Fuller's The A-Z of Unusual Words Challenge. Check out the details in the story linked below. My first entry was around 75 words and this one is about 175 words, so my average is meeting the 100-125 word count criteria...