The Five Chambered Wonder of Nature

[Now comes Cuddie’s new tour-de-force,

The Five Chambered Wonder of Nature]

This Animal can breed in season or out of season,

grazing graciously upon grass and other short roughages,

This creature is an EXCLUSIVE HERBIVORE

(but can show roots of a predatory

muzzle in vestigial canines)

Use of lips and tongue in selection

mouthed, in parts, where are the choicest bits,

those premier plant-parts,

full of cellulosic goodness,

needing a 4 or 5?-chambered stomach machine.

Let me tell you all about it

before you make your Haggis out of it,

a massy chewed bolus, where

an indwelling colony cocktail, the body’s larder

(no not for storage!) that bolus mass, grassy sweet,

passing thru to the RUMEN where the feed is fermented

in this fleshy tank with its indwelling colony, this cocktail

of bacteria fungi and busy protozoa:

and marvel, lo, behold, the Bolus thus as Cud

comes back at intervals (repeatedly)

4 further mastication

after systematic regurgitation

this preparedness of the Food Creator

Is called RUMINATION;

then the journey follows through with the process

towards the reticulum

and omasum

post-haste past the first three chambers

in longish chewing cogitation

It is the Abomasum finally takes

the breakdown to the final stages

by this roomy engine of extraction

the cellulosed solid of each plant-cell wall,

abomosum, called True Stomach,

star of the Digestive System, factory

of fleshy sugar extraction nutrient isolation,

it is complexified, this kiln of the gut,

it was complexified gradually and in a scaled way

to the toughs of roughage foraging :

BOVIDS on the grassland landscape

rough and tough in texture of cropping.

Bleating eating, more ruminant running

into simpler body-fueling sugars

the wood-fibers basically at the heart of grass,

goes in and out again

the cellulose organ gallon sacks by

ferment and jaw power

and the churn of squeezing acid’s process

INTERIOR

[That, my friends is the stomach of a sheep

when shall we taste the chitterlings?]

Ye Shepherds, Goatherds, Cowherds, Swineherds all!

Tripe is usually made from Cattle, and must

be dressed by a professional tripe-dresser:

A Child’s Introduction to Poetry.

Gloss:

You have seen the writing on the bark of course, the Sheep-Skin Codices of the Middle-Ages and Beyond (Calf-Skin rather, which is better?) This talk of Haggis and the Five Chambered Wonder breaches the subject of the neglected organ-meat industry despite the fact that foie-gras, pâté blends of various sorts, and sweetbreads are considered gourmet foods in international cuisine; some for special holiday occasions, such as haggis, chitterlings, etc. Offal connoisseurs have lately striven for the return of Elder, the cooked udder of a cow. Yum.

My Bucolica is a modern reboot of the "eclogue" form originating in Classical Greece and Rome and much rehashed throughout all European literature. It usually comes in the form of a collection of shepherd's songs, dialogues, and stories featuring themes of love/desire, nature/the seasons, death/mortality, and the passing of time. It is often a playground to poeticize the animal world and humankind's relation to it, as well as particulars of the seemingly idyllic life led by simple shepherds and farmers in Arcadia. It is also referred to as bucolic literature. I wrote my Bucolica 2017-2018 in a mix of poetry and prose.