Watching the Cow

Don’t ask me how he got it,

(I don’t know anyway!)

But Bill Jones owned a golden watch,

‘Twas with him every day.

Then, one sad day, he lost it,

Out, somewhere in the plain.

Mid grazing cows and antelope,

And miles of golden grain.

For hours his household hunted,

(It was that dear, you see),

But none could catch one glint of gold,

Though all searched carefully.

The watch was not recovered,

And years all passed away,

At times, Ol’ Jones still pondered hard

‘Bout where it went that day.

Then, one day, took to market,

A grand old ‘herbivore’,

It was her time, the poor old dear,

To serve the carnivores.

The butcher soon discovered,

(With meat before him spread),

A glint of gold in the old girl’s gut,

(She’d clearly been well fed.)

The watch had been discovered,

And this I must admit:

Restored to the old farmer there,

When it’d be cleaned a bit.

Now the part that’s hard to ‘swallow’,

Is this part coming now . . .

For the golden watch was running true!

After years inside the cow.

Now how could this one object,

So miraculously found,

Survived the years down deep inside,

While keeping itself wound?

The experts speculated,

Their investigations done.

That the churning of the stomach there,

Had made the gold watch run.

Well, now you’ve heard the story,

As Dad told it to me,

Of farmer, cow and running watch,

Do you--like me--believe?