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Watch a cow search a pasture,
Intent as any person
Alone in a library,

Perched over a glowing screen,
Or in a cluster browsing
A rack of dresses on sale.

What is flow state for a cow
In a pasture at sunset,
One mild winter afternoon,

The sound of a creek rushing
Behind the pasture, a whoosh
Once in a while from the road?

It doesn’t look like hunger.
Seems more focused than anxious.
But what could human words know

About the hunger of cows?
A bear in huckleberries
Looks contentedly focused,

But it’s racing the winter
And months of hibernation,
With starvation possible.

These cows will end on tables.
Starvation’s hardly likely.
But they look a lot like bears,

Black and bulky, foraging
Quietly. Can life ever
Be after something, working

Away at getting something,
And not be a little scared?
How good is the forage here?