(Poem) Old Mother Azure by Susan Hawthorne

Old Mother Azure

went to the pasture

to get her poor cow some straw

but when she got there

the ground was bare

and the poor cow wanted more

she went to the granary

to buy her some chaff

but when she came back

she was dealing with staff

she went to the farmer

to buy her some silage

but when she came back

she was flying on mileage

she went to the seamstress

to buy her a cloak

but when she came back

she was sniffing coke

she went to the milliners

to buy her a hat

but when she came back

she was chasing a gnat

she went to the snippers

to get her some colour

but when she came back

she was learning to holler

she went to the shoemaker

to buy her some crocs

but when she came back

she was wearing white socks

she went to the moon

to buy her some cheese

but when she came back

she was dancing with bees

she went to the sun

to buy her the world

but when she came back

it had all unfurled

Old Mother Azure

is now in the sky

while the cow jumped the moon

I don’t know why

Notes

I wrote this poem during my ‘cow’ period. Not all poems made it into the collection Cow, among them this one. It’s a riff on the children’s nursery rhyme ‘Old Mother Hubbard’.

Nursery rhymes include lots of oral histories, especially the histories of women. The struggles of women, especially single women, living in poverty. It is also about women’s connection with animals..

The photo is a cow I bought in Las Vegas, where there had been an exhibition that included Franz Marc’s leaping cow painting which you can find here. This is an image of joy, cow joy. It makes me smile each time I look at it..


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