Milked by Hand

by Mary McCarthy

In a whitewashed dairy, a shorthorn cow

Tidied up in the stall, a three-legged stool,

Milked by hand in ten minutes,

Yielding three hundred gallons of milk a year.

 

The woman sang songs known by heart,

Knew this task since she was seven years old,

Before there were creameries,

Took buckets of milk to the churn in a room,

A separator – milk and cream,

Called out to keep the cream for a week,

Churned with tiny blades to make butter.

 

The buttermilk was sour,

Kept for baking or to sell it

At the butter buyers

In country shops in town.

 

Some milk was kept for the house,

As much as they wanted,

And the rest was kept

For the calves and pigs

on the farm every day.

 

In a whitewashed dairy, a shorthorn cow

Tidied up in a stall, a three-legged stool,

Milked by hand in ten minutes,

Yielding three hundred gallons of milk a year.

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in Poetry as Commemoration workshops held at Cork City Library in September, 2022. The workshops were led by writer Thomas McCarthy.