In Conversation with You in and Around the Cowshed (While You Milk, and I Talk)

For Kate Gow

And I know that calling

you a ‘force of nature’

puts you high up on that

pedestal, but it’s true.

For as much as I dwell in slow-speed storm-space,

you are gale-time, roaring over the

world as gulf-stream – massaging its spine

in your rush through fields of wild daises yet

to be chained in the span of

forever and a day.

But then again, we traded an intensity

of passion for that calmer, pre-modern

romance (la grand amour needn’t be

capitalised here); one that lets us

enjoy a day in work, in the sun together

sharing the same sky.

‘cause, in the end, we may be destined to

part ways together; to be twinned forces

always in reaction, relationship

with each other,

spanning any distance

of the earth, or the heart.