Part 4: Grandpa's Wonderful Cows

GRANDPA’S WONDERFUL COWS

This boy prizes what he will---

and doesn't what he won't.

                                                                       —barbsdad

AN UNCANNY, ENDLESS omnium-gatherum of forms,

expanses, bulks, ridgy surface patterns, and textures

prompted delectable metaphors.

There were cow doughnuts, cow dainties, and cow fondues.

There were cow crusts, cow chips, cow bear claws,

cow mashes, cow plum puddings, cow puffs, cow gumbos,

cow scones, cow sauces.

There were cow tarts, cow peels, slices, teacakes, fritters,

porridges, buns, fudges, muffins.

And cow flapjacks and, now and then, waffles---with a car

or truck's tire-tread stamp an eye-arresting trait of each.

Cow custards, too, and cow mushes, oatmeals, cookies,

godunks, and even cow omelets.

And cow cinnamon rolls, zakuskas, shortcakes, frappes.

And cow brees, soups, slurries, crackers, curds, hashed

browns, purées, pastes, gruels, patisseries, cheesecakes,

canapés, cheeses, peanut butters, jams, even cow jellies.

To my occasional bemused regret, I never actually

tasted any of their predominantly ample leavings, but, taken

together, they provided continuous nudges that favored---

or flavored, I should say---idly speculative imaginings.

Rich, even chatoyant hues held charming positions in

the manure-scene tapestries, not to mention, in addition,

discomfiting, nose-glomming stenches that zigzagged

from zesty to borderline-absent to about middle of the road

that varied with amounts and kinds of predefecatory food

choices.

Pea-greens, dark and bilious greens, matter-of-fact browns,

golden iridescents, chartreuses, and slime yellows, mustards,

salt-and-peppers, slate grays, charcoals, blacks---even

an off-white chalky if it had aged agreeably---were superbly

represented.

And at times all or almost all were encounterable

in a single defecation.

(to be continued in Part 5)