We have been waiting for Rosie

hips awkward with the weight

of her unborn calf

head lowered

teats full and showing

though not so much as in cattle

her sides are full and rounded

Tim doubts even the pregnancy when she has no baby

by September

But in the cool frost mornings

of the last weekend of September

when the mist hangs

in silver clouds in the valley

until ten a.m.

the baby is born.

I am checking mornings and evenings

and at dawn I go out to see:

I see three adult bison in mid-field

on the small hill from which they like to survey their world.

I see the three-month-old calf

already darkening

but no Rosie.

I pull boots on my bare feet quickly

and start to walk the perimeter.

the south side of the field

tangled with blackberries

— still a few full ripe sweet globes

as I pull them and hold them in my mouth

lingering over the taste

my hand scratched and bleeding in the thorns.

The withes of blackberry scrape

my shoulders

the fog hides under my shirt

damp and cold

coming down the steep slope

beside the cluster of giant firs in the field

I see Rosie at last.

She is down

rocking

head swinging, trying to get up

sides sucking for breath

— but I see no calf

so I press against the wire fence

wondering.

Ten yards from me

she staggers to her feet

legs trembling

blood draining under her tail

where it is still pink swollen

— she must be exhausted —

Where is the calf?

Suddenly I see Lonnie, Rosie’s mother

an eight-year-old cow

with her own, the three-month calf

— and Rosie’s new calf

stumbling blindly after her

harvest red-gold in the tall ripe grass

camouflaged — a heifer, maybe

Lonnie the fierce

the matriarch queen of the bison females

a jealous warrior —

What is she doing with

Rosie’s calf?

Maybe, I think, grandmotherly

instincts have taken over —

She is nurturing the baby

while its mother recuperates . . .

Anger and instinct surge in my memory

I am in the hospital

cut open on the table

in the cold room

the bright white light, sterile walls

The doctor pulls the baby

from my stomach

it’s a girl, they say.

Let me hold her, I cry.

No, says the anesthesiologist

a young man

with no face now in my memory

Though 3 years later

I am still murderously

furious at him

“It would break the sterile barrier”

and “It is too cold in this room for the baby”

I know instinctively that he has

no children of his own.

What is he talking about —

“sterile barrier”! This is not in

my birth plan. My mind whirls — my flesh craves the touch of

my baby girl.

My naked arms reach out for her

“Give me the baby!”

I beg them.

The doctor hesitates.

Tim hesitates, confused,

wanting what is best for the baby —

Rosie walks gasping into the field

head lowered —

Lonnie moves between Rosie and her baby

pushes Rosie away with a thrust of her great head

horns lowered

The doctor hands the baby

to the nurse, who carries her away

leaving a dark ache in my arms

I lie on the table

defeated and vulnerable, feeling

the doctor and my husband have betrayed me.

Rosie stands confused.

She tries to go around Lonnie

To the other side

The tiny calf leans against Lonnie

trying to nurse

red-gold against the dark thick wool

Of Lonnie’s ribs.

Lonnie wheels to face Rosie

nearly knocking the calf down.

The calf stumbles, trying to reach Lonnie’s nipples.

I hear Jessica’s tiny wailing

voice disappearing down the hall

as the nurse carries her away

I hear it again and again

an electric charge in my own veins

like walking into a hot wire fence.

Ten minutes is eternity.

When they bring her to me

cleaned, swaddled, skin covered, untouchable,

and already the morphine

is starting to enter my blood

I hold the tiny bundle

check our matching wrist bands

compulsively

yet even as I kiss the dark hair

nebulous doubt fills me -

is she mine?

did the nurses swap her

with another?

Even with sheep, if the lamb

is separated from the mother

the mother can fail

to bond

can fail to recognize the lamb as her own.

Sometimes another sheep will try

to steal the lamb

if her own has died

or is not yet born.

Lonnie has stolen Rosie’s calf.

All that day we watch anxiously

as Lonnie drives the more timid Rosie

away from her baby.

The heifer, sturdy enough

runs behind Lonnie

confused and content

We cannot tell if Lonnie lets the heifer nurse

now she drives away her

older, darker boy.

The horns have started to emerge

from his black head

but he is still hungry for milk.

The new heifer needs the colostrum

that only Rosie has for her

— it is only good for a few more hours.

By late afternoon

watching Rosie’s anxious frustration

as she circles the pair

— her mother and her daughter—

again and again

We decide to intervene.

She paws and circles, head lowered

standing always just outside

an invisible circle.

If she steps inside it

Lonnie charges her.

I think of the woman doctor

whom I love — and trusted —

failing to stand up to the callow anesthesiologist

My mind circles and circles

trying to pierce the dark moment

when they took Jessica away before I touched her

I write letters to the anesthesiologist in my mind

and erase them all before they reach paper

they are too fierce for print.

We take the half ton Ford pickup

with its dubious brakes

into the field

Tim, Jessica and I

He drives into the herd

trying to separate Lonnie and the calf

trying to push Rosie closer

The faster he goes, the faster

the bison go, the calf

wheeling tightly behind

Lonnie, Lonnie making

tight fast circles to the

right, to the left

Rosie runs apart from the others

forlorn.

The bull, Samson, tries to lead them

farther from the chasing truck

I can see astonishment and alarm

in his usually calm eyes.

He trusted Tim.

“Stop! Stop!” I plead with Tim

“The calf is exhausted.”

She runs nimbly, but now

her little tongue hangs out with the effort.

Lonnie’s grim determination to keep the calf shows in her eyes

white-walling as she shakes her great head at us.

The beard under her jaw swings as she runs.

“Let’s leave them alone for now”

In the hospital they left us alone together

the tiny bundle and I.

Somebody — a nurse? — gave me too much morphine

and during the night

my mind enters

a long corridor of confusion

I keep trying to lift myself

above the dark wave

that entering my bloodstream

refuses to part from my mind.

I feel numb, frighteningly depressed.

The room is filled with dark bluish light

even when the bright electric lights shine.

I look at Jessica’s black hair

So like mine at birth

I cannot believe it.

The tan skin of her face

tenderly dark with jaundice

makes her look Native American

Tim is part Native American

But still I doubt

the whirling stampeding confusion

of my brain

striving to clear itself of the morphine fog.

I want this little girl so much

but cannot convince my body that she is mine.

The melting together of mother flesh and

daughter flesh is not happening.

The interruption that must not happen

happened.

So Tim refuses to stop at first

until even he sees that the bison are too angry and confused

and Lonnie will not give up the heifer

The heifer drops exhausted by Lonnie’s side.

We drive the truck slowly out the south gate

Tim hits the steering wheel with his hand

worry standing in his brow

irritated with me

for not supporting his effort

to separate them by human means.

Jessica sits between us

excited and content

never doubting her place in the world

the center between father and mother

The sun is starting to set

gleaming amber over the fir trees on the ridge

above our log home.

The next morning at dawn I open the front door

I can hear the bison stamping and

grunting at the south gate close to the house

I slip boots on my bare feet

and run down to the fence

calling them softly

Hey Rosie, hey Lonnie, hey Cleo, hey Samson!

They stand at the fence

and when I see their order

I cheer in amazement.

Samson has saved the day.

He stands guard between Lonnie and Rosie

his great black head up, huge warm eyes

staring at me.

During the night he has bred Lonnie

— it is clear from the way she nuzzles his back and stands close to him

The sweet golden calf is nursing her own mother.

Rosie stands content

as if the world were always so.

I watch in the cold morning for nearly twenty minutes

as the heifer nurses first one side then the other

and leans her red gold head against her mother.

I go back into the house

and hug my children

and remember nursing each. o