Vaccus Poeticus

Sacred Cows

The pillars might recall the Lateran.
The Dragon might be wholly Manichaean.
The verse romance might be an also ran.
Without romance, our world would be plebeian.
And so I offer a truncated paean
requested, for an image I can’t want.
Twelve oxen holding up a vessel. Be an
impression of a fine baptismal font.

Maybe the oxen are the twelve apostles.
Perchance they are old Israel’s twelve tribes.
Perchance they mock us, just as Gosse’s fossils
against Creation became hostile jibes.
What are the mystic and mysterious vibes
which round the watcher in her tower rain down?
What wine, who’s blond, what nectar now imbibes
the Passion’s fencer, Rachel Fulton Brown?

—Verses offered in tribute, if not accolade, by David Ganz, fellow lover of fonts medieval and modern 

Can you read the riddle of the cows? 

dragoncommonroom.com

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