 My mug with my favorite mug
TWO COWS GAZE
at each other, one amazed by the other who has risen in a meditative state.
Levitating to an elevated plane atop her cushion, this cow’s not high on helium but on thought.
In her laid-back, bovine bliss, convinced her friend will lift after having had a chance to ruminate,
she won't nag with moos or kicks, since no creature can resist such upward floating to a space that disallows excessive haste.
The bovines I’ve surveyed agree that high’s the place all want to be, where mindful herds might moderate the pace that frays the human race.
 Robert Chapla’s Tight Knit Group
AFTER THE FACT
A pasture of colorful grass contains a cow cluster. We, the absent other, see them crowd together like a litter of kittens in a pet store window, but these cows are not behind glass. They have left the canvas, where a moment of their movement remains.
Any flick of ear or tail is an illusion. Once the paint dries, motion stops, except in the mind. Four look at the painter, their human recorder. After that, after the fact, we who will materialize later take our turns, looking back.
 Robert Chapla's Bolinas Ridge with Cows
BOLINAS RIDGE WITH COWS Composed in profile atop the ridge, the two seem to inhabit a code. fog will roll in to envelop them. Perhaps oblivion is the word whose remnants remain. a reprieve from assembling verbiage
Robert Chapla’s A.M. Diablo Slopes DRIVEN
The herd flows like a vat of molasses emptied into early morning light that falls on long, broad faces. Snouts nudge obstructing bodies ahead.
Wavelike, earth-pounding, of one mind, moving with purpose through scrub, foliage, each other, unaware of their beauty, their rare color, they head toward the rising sun.
An unknown force pulls them. It’s their amorphous reason for existing, one beyond them as they ease on into life’s long, earthbound mystery.
Robert Chapla's Grazing Spaces
GRAZING SPACES
Where are we?
What landscape is this? Is that a spaceship in the distance? We must be on another planet. Weren't we just watching a game on TV? Where did my beer go? And my chips? I don't remember ever eating like this, head down to the ground. Wait! I remember cows doing it back on earth. Now that I can focus, I see you aren’t yourself. We've been turned into cattle, but what we're eating and walking on isn't grass. It's more like cotton candy. This new life might be sweet, but I can't get a grip on it. I feel at least as peculiar as I used to in that other world we've come unstuck from. Do you remember being human? I'm already beginning to forget.
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