Goodbye to Glamour

Let us celebrate

The glamour girls..

Flora ..

topgirl always on the lookout for extras

I know it’ll open if I keep rubbing it!

Holly..independent, moving like a dancer: baby Claira..sweet- natured and inquisitive

Finally, big and easy and affectionate..the star of the show:

Eleanor

..have all left home!!

.. they came to the gate

heads up for the next event –

something familiar –

and then we reverse the wagon up to the holding pen

lower the ramp (a steep 30 degree slope)

We close the girls into the holding pen

gradually reducing the space,

pushing them toward the gaping box wagon

portal to their future life.

They have never been in  this situation

never transported,

never left the farm

and suddenly they start behaving untypically

jabbing and clashing with their horns…

barging each other and the metal barriers

seeking an opening..

anything but the yawning rectangle

at the top of the steep steel ramp.

..and these are my sweet girls!!

So I go in the pen with them, and

one by one

slip a rope halter over their heads

to coax them into the box,

with Graeme, the buyer, leaning on their rears,

little Claira first,

then Holly, Eleanor

and, finally, older and recalcitrant,

skew-horned Flora.

..once inside they quieten, taking stock..

Graeme closes the gate

with me inside,

breathing the atmospheric apprehension,

as I gently untie and remove the rope from their heads,

while they jostle to identify the confines of this new world,

trusting from my presence that something at the core is steady.

…and something of my care rubs off on their sweating flanks

like a clear gelatinous film

a tiny extrusion from my emotional life that they carry with them

as the old float rattles off down the road.

They will be together..

but no longer a part of my day..

every day..

They have been a delight –

the Glamour Girls –

Gone.