Listen to them cows beeling

Monochrome image of Ayesha Chouglay. She is looking to the left of the image, she has dark hair, tied up in a ponytail with a fringe. Behind her are two paintings on the wall. One is abstract, the other a still life.

Listen to them cows beeling

Listen to them cows beeling

Ayesha Chouglay

their baritone peals softer than the auctioneer’s drawl, the man’s voice, God-like, more rap than the gavel  

their market my Clapham Junction, lives set anew, long stick in hand, brolly in mine the Lincoln Red the soft tan of an Irish Setter, trees ice cream churning out the windows  

and after, mud shod boots tramping the lanes of low hedges
the flat expanse the white of an egg spreading, roads the yolk, tarmac hob,  

land feeding us on, mizzle blushing our faces
we vergers of the verges walk the lanes, parish to parish, hand to hand  

mouth to cheek to say hello, food to mouth to say something of love, I buy tin foil chocolates for a party in Herne Hill, the fat of the meat will make your hair curl  

Mickey and Minnie, the pigs slaughtered each year, magically grown anew, like teeth to the fairy, sermons are poems, fed from one mouth to another, chine, chime, chine  

during the week we farm, I stare at the keyboard like a prayer, at weekends we cycle the lanes, I, Sam, preaching, the wooden angels look down upon us, I photograph their  

faces, hidden up in the rafters, safe, an ex used to call me angel, biblically, love, they would be a whirl of eyes, my eye ploughs one furrow at a time, the  

shire horses with their slow plod, time Softly settling, worked into, there’s something in my eye    

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Note

This poem is designed to be read from one person to another. There are two voices; the Roman voice is written in the way I imagine my Great Grandad, Samuel Limon, might have spoken, and the voice in Italics is written more in the way that I speak. It is designed to be read in an intimate way, without a further audience, with the reader holding the hand of the listener when they read one of the voices, to denote the change in a tactile way.  

For Samuel Limon. Credit for the quotation ‘listen to them cows beeling’: Beryl Durkin. This is a phrase that Sam would say often, when the cows were making a certain sound. Sam farmed during the week, and on the weekends, worked as a Methodist Preacher.

Sam and Beryl A small square photograph with a white trim, stuck to the page of a photo album. The page is covered in horizontal orange lines, faded and weathered with age. On the left hand side is a cream strip with a hole punch, designed to fit into an album. The photograph itself is black and white, and shows a young woman holding the arm of an older man. Behind them sits foliage, perhaps part of a farm. The young woman, Beryl, holds a pitchfork in one hand, and the arm of her father with the other. She wears a long circle skirt, belted with a large clasp, and a white shirt. Her hair is short and slightly curled. Sam wears a shirt and an open waistcoat. He holds a bucket of what may be cabbages in one hand, and a scythe and rake in the other. His trousers are high waisted, his shirt is tucked in, and atop his head sits a flat cap. Both are smiling. I chose to include this photograph because Beryl, my Grandmother and Sam’s daughter, gave me the inspiration for the title of the poem ‘listen to them cows beeling’. She told me of the phrases Sam used to say often, and this one stuck with me.

Sam and Beryl

A small square photograph with a white trim, stuck to the page of a photo album. The page is covered in horizontal orange lines, faded and weathered with age. On the left hand side is a cream strip with a hole punch, designed to fit into an album. The photograph itself is black and white, and shows a young woman holding the arm of an older man. Behind them sits foliage, perhaps part of a farm.

The young woman, Beryl, holds a pitchfork in one hand, and the arm of her father with the other. She wears a long circle skirt, belted with a large clasp, and a white shirt. Her hair is short and slightly curled. Sam wears a shirt and an open waistcoat. He holds a bucket of what may be cabbages in one hand, and a scythe and rake in the other. His trousers are high waisted, his shirt is tucked in, and atop his head sits a flat cap. Both are smiling.

I chose to include this photograph because Beryl, my Grandmother and Sam’s daughter, gave me the inspiration for the title of the poem ‘listen to them cows beeling’. She told me of the phrases Sam used to say often, and this one stuck with me.

Ayesha Chouglay

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