Summary
Occasionally, one of the cows would interrupt the typical calm with an extremely loud and striking noise. This noise would prompt the speaker to stop his daily tasks, such as cutting an apple with a knife or reading the newspaper, to walk across the road to the stone wall bordering the cows’ pasture. The speaker would be alarmed and assume that the cow making the noise must be in extreme pain, as if it were being burned by a torch or stabbed in the side by a spear.
Analysis
This stanza marks a shift in the poem from the speaker's complacency regarding the cows to the speaker's deeper investigation of and engagement with the cows. While the first two stanzas effectively illustrated the cows' everyday routine and depicted the neighbor occasionally noticing or observing the cows, in the third stanza the speaker is compelled to investigate the cows more closely. The third stanza is thus critical in developing the poem’s central theme regarding the relationship between humanity and nature. The speaker literally walks across the road to the stone wall and metaphorically closes the distance between his domestic, human life and the ancient, natural world of the cows. The striking noise of the loud cow ultimately complicates the speaker’s complacency regarding the typically quiet, calm cows, and turns him from an observer to an agent who seeks to assist the cow that he believes is in pain.
This theme is also built by the specific details that Collins selects for the speaker's tasks. The speaker is first reading the newspaper, a task that exemplifies humanity’s concern with daily events and topics such as the economy or political concerns. The task of reading the newspaper is juxtaposed with the cows’ state of being. The cows are “patient” and content with their natural state of being. They simply wait for rain rather than recording the weather patterns in a newspaper. Similarly, the speaker is also depicted cutting an apple with a knife. Like a newspaper, a knife is a manmade tool that assists humanity in manipulating the natural environment. Unlike the cows, who are described as “munching” directly on the grass (Line 9), the speaker is capable of using a sophisticated tool like a knife to feed himself. The speaker's very human tasks juxtapose with the cows’ complete integration with nature, which in turn makes the speaker's reflection on the cows and nature more powerful.
The third stanza also exemplifies Billy Collins’ distinct style in that it focuses closely on a small moment of extraordinariness amidst a typical daily routine. The speaker is engaged in everyday tasks, such as reading a newspaper or cutting an apple, when he becomes intrigued by the cows. The speaker describes the noise that the loud cow makes as “phenomenal,” further heightening the gravity of a seemingly mundane moment. The meaning of “phenomenal” is ambiguous—this word can refer to either a rare, extraordinary event or something that is observable and perceivable by the senses. Both meanings are apt here, as the sound is both exceptional (as seen by the speaker's reaction) and extremely loud, easily perceivable by the speaker even across the road. The use of the opening phrase “every once in a while” contributes to the poem’s focus on this striking moment, as it sets this scene apart from the background established in the first two stanzas.
