THE WALKING SHADOW Cows are not milked by hand anymore and so will never again swoon to the rhythms of Shakespeare. O Macbeth, I learned by heart your soliloquy against the warm belly of a cow every syllable matched by a rich swish into a frothing bucket. In that sharp dark morning my brothers grasp adhesive stars of frost on the aluminum milkcan. The number 28 sways, the milkcan bangs against their ankles. As the step of one rises, the other's has fallen onto the frozen gravel towards the stand And then is heard no more. -- Philip CASEY was born to Irish parents in London in 1950 and grew up in Co. Wexford, now resides in Dublin.