Milk

Memories of Grandpa’s dairy farm,
Balhannah, Adelaide Hills

Past a yabbie-filled dam
hot breathing
cud chewing
methane producing
cows arrive at dairy
they want milking
gumboots flapping
cow pat dodging
farmer heads for dairy
astride three-legged stool
udders cupped
as milk flows
sun not quite risen
children sleep
weetbix await
milk to pour
used to come in pail
now in cardboard
at the supermarket
pasteurised homogenised
discounted price
poor farmers broke
however
tomorrow morning
the cows will want milking, again.

Andrew Ballard lives in Adelaide. Following his time as a petty officer medical in the Royal Australian Navy for 11 years, he worked for medical companies selling devices and instruments, then as a support worker in mental health, and a support worker and first-aid instructor in aged care. With systemic mastocytosis, he took early retirement, and along with digital art he took up writing. His poems have been published by TAMS, The Australasian Mastocytosis Society, in the US in the New Jersey Mignolo Arts Group’s journal and the New York poetry journal “Open Skies”, and previously in “Poet’s Corner”.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.