Autumn's Calf Sales

Autumn's calf sales.
These are marked by sleepless nights.
First there is the herding and drafting.
Cows and calves separated by barb and hinge-joint.
And until the bawling offspring are trucked off to sale-yards,
Night and day their anguish rings into the sky.
I hear their bellows in the quiet of the evening.
I hear it again around midnight,
When I wake from un-remembered dreams.
It is the first sound I notice despite the birdsong,
Heralding the new day.
As the sun is peaking over the horizon,
I go outside and into the paddocks,
I see the grieving cattle.
The light casts them in long shadows and a wispy blanket of mist.
The bereft mothers with udders that strain and ache with excess milk,
That will never again be suckled by this year's calves.