ALT Ox Eric Pankey The onion and the sweet grass are chewed the same — Again, efficiently. And it is that care, The sure thoroughness, the calm depending As much on the beast’s weight as it does on will, The slow circuit its blood takes, that we admire. It does not care for the twenty words we’ve saved For it. It does not care that steadiness Is its burden. In its dull language, the ox Says little. If it chose to mock us it would Do so with such a subtlety That we’d miss it as we raised the whip or pitched Moldy hay from the sharpened tines of a fork. Here, we’d say. Here. This is for you alone. Here.