Day 528/Ceasefire Day 58

And the cattle have also been killed.
Gentle cows who grazed in the fields.
Children who sat and milked them, 
their parents who taught them.
Others who led them up and down
from the pastures:  north pasture, south pasture,
morning, then evening. Light
changing, growing golden, purple,
as quietly they led the cows at the end
of day to barns they had built.  This
happened and happened. 
Slow cows, lowering their heads.  Their deep
sounds a lament.  The sweet
grass gone, the children gone, the parents
gone.  Cows who wasted and died
of starvation, for lack
of water. Cows who died in the bombings. Why,
tell me, would anyone want to murder a cow
except to deprive a farmer of his living?
Farmer who was murdered anyway.  Children
of the farmer, murdered anyway. The land
also murdered: what was grass,
blown to dust. Where barns stood:
broken stones. More stones.