Jet black, coal black, midnight black now unassuming but present. Her walk strained, each step deliberate. Last winter her urine stained the snow red (ish) (brown).
Once a queen; at our last visit her herd no longer (recognizable); the favorite of Evelyn, not a favorite.
She outlived her usefulness (there), now just another to feed, emotions do not factor in
in a practical life.
Her life wrestled from death…from a bullet passing through the back of her skull to her mouth.
She has abscesses. “I will only take Dana if Secola comes with her.” The bargaining took over a month.
(Finally) (I had to) let (ting) go (of her) to save her.
To let the hammer strike the primer igniting powder forcing lead from brass.
(Now) during the day Zoey and Secola are often together both once queens. (Zoey never gave up (on herself) a lesson in letting go holding on.) At night Secola and Dana lay together.
It was (a) downhill (walk) to life for Secola and Dana.
Now both have a role a purpose a usefulness in a growing herd; they are the elders carrying the weight of experience of time.
As Secola lives as Secola walks as Secola pauses, we pause, her breathing labored ours quickened in this uphill climb we seek level ground often; under a Ponderosa a road cut a small rock outcropping we attempt to mask our heavy breathing.
Secola allows us time, time to mark each step, to pause, to notice, to be awake in the moment, to be present, as her weight shifts left to right front to back, to reach out to you, to be present in my love for you, to be awake to you, to be with you unencumbered as part of the herd.
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Sam Manno was born in 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. He moved to Montana in the winter of 1984 and, like one of Darwin’s Finches, found a niche.
He is an artist, farmer, pastoralist, occasional host of Pea Green Boat and Children’s Corner on Montana Public Radio and has found peace as part of a herd of dairy goats.