My Cocoa

Cocoa: Sixteen *

A calf has gorgeous deep, dark eyes
framed by long curled lashes
and when it sucks from the bottle
in your hand it is the cutest thing
and you want to keep it
forever.

She is old now;
grey hairs pepper her
black hide
and her tread… drags… slow…ly

as if she knows

the end is near –
and I
can’t bear
to let her
go.

* © Kathryn Apel January 2013

 Some pets we have for a short time, and others seem to be with us for a lifetime. But not long enough…

Her name was Cocoa, and for almost 18 years, she dotted the landscape of our home paddock. Yesterday we said goodbye – and the view will never be quite so beautiful. Today I find my eyes still roving the paddock looking for her not-so-glossy, not-so-youthful frame… as sorrow wells and I remember all over again, that she is gone.

My Cocoa. xx

(Cocoa was my first bottle-reared baby; the shy one. Amber joined us 2 months later. Though we have had countless mobs of cattle in our home paddock over the years, the girls were rarely far apart. As the photos show.)