How Now, Brown Cow?

How now, brown cow, can you engage a don

On science or linguistics, or fine art,

While grazing, if the land your paths crossed on

No longer is low-rent, and herds depart?

Old farts who trim the budget just don’t get

What cows bequeath to learning. Wouldn’t it

Behoove them to assess how you abet

Researchers when your soulful looks permit

Original world views to flourish, and

Why thoughtful moos from you to pensive dons

Nudge progress forward more than cowless land? …

Cash cow need not mean beef—beside the swans

On River Cam, it means inspiring profs

Who like to ruminate by cattle troughs!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His acrostic sonnets have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Better Than Starbucks, The Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, MONO, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, the Satirist, the Washington Post and WestWard Quarterly. The poem was prompted by the Guardian story, “Cambridge could lose city centre cows if council cuts out-of-hours rescue service.”