Mimi Khalvati: The Black and White Cows

The black and white cows
hold centuries of use like china;
transfixed on downs, at home
in chiaroscuro and gilt frames.
Death is on their trail weaving
through the air of horns and apple boughs,
raising farmers' generations in the pail.
Pacing the hearse to a dumb
and destined task to cart it
back into the landscape, they wait
by the stile at the end of the lane.
And beyond, the empty pastures.


Published 1991. Khalvati is a British poet of Iranian background; Persian themes inform some of her poems, but in others she's entirely British. This one starts as minor-key pastoral until the line when Death appears. Suddenly the cows, with their alarming absolute (non-)colours rather than a comforting jersey brown, are "pacing the hearse" and the pastoralism has become very discomfited.