in 1919 my grandpa installed cow drinking
cups in the round barn they were set between
every two cows making the cost $2.50 a cow
before they’d drunk only from the barnyard
tank and spring brook he wrote an unsolicited
(I think) letter to the james cup company giving
figures for how much more milk his herd was
giving by drinking freely he said that in stormy
or icy weather they were reluctant to go out
and production would fall off he figures he’s
covered the cost of the cups in sixty days –
“With my herd managed under the one rule,
‘keep the cows happy,’ we have very slight
fluctuations due to changes in weather or
feeding conditions” – us kids growing up
often played in the empty barn one sport was
to press down the cow-nose shaped metal grid
(as the cow would do) fill each cup with water
in readiness for its owner’s return to her stall
cow cups made cows happy grampa happy
us kids happy though I don’t think we ever
buried our noses in a cup and drank after all
we had unlimited supplies of chocolate milk
2019 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in Green New World.
