I had just finished seeing my life again
in the blind of the dangerous curve
when I came upon them.
I was rounding the dangerous curve
on Holcomb Rock when a posse of farmers
in pickups put up their hands to stop me.

It was brown, big, and alive,
half-submerged in front of the culvert
through which the normally gentle Judith Creek ran.
I rolled down the window and peered out through
the interference of rain; there bodies
were forms, almost alien, in the familiar terrain
as they struggled to pass the thick ropes down
to Ed and Jim who then then tied them securely
in bowlines around its midsection, a cow.

The waters, rising fast, cut through
their skin and whirled in panic.
The odds against them were rising fast
as they put their slippery blistered hands
to the task, as though they were saving themselves.
The cow seemed to bring them out to themselves
with her dumb high head lowing away
and the whites of her eyes which mirrored
her milk and thereby the one clear thread
of livelihood that ran like a blessing
through their lives.