Spirituality and Compassion in Bob Hicok's "My new neighbor"

In Bob Hicok’s poem “My new neighbor,” Hicok describes a cow living in a field beside a small Presbyterian church which he therefore assumes later to be “a God-fearing cow” (26). He explains how this cow has a tag that reads “42” and is destined to be slaughtered, processed, and turned into hamburger for his own consumption. Throughout the poem, I see themes of the poet’s conflict between compassion and desire, as well as divinity’s mystery.

In the first half of the poem, Hicok expresses concern for the cow. He “confessed to 42” that he eats cheeseburgers and reflects: “I had never addressed my food/before it had reached the plate” (19-21) A confession implies guilt or shame, so he feels bad for eating the meat of another being but also takes great pleasure in it.

Hicok then continues in the next lines to wonder what he would say “to chicken teriyaki/by way of lessening the blow or making it feel welcome?” (22-23) Hicok acknowledges that the act of eating meat can be considered a “blow” by an animal whose flesh will be eaten, and he gives an example of a chicken before it is turned into chicken teriyaki. He feels he needs to comfort or assuage his “victims” before they die to show some kind of remorse or appreciation. Yet while he feels guilty for enjoying the meat of these slaughtered animals, he also enjoys it and therefore feels a conflict of interest.

I also see themes of divinity in this poem, including an awareness of higher powers and even using the cow as a metaphor. Hicok wonders “if the congregation of flies/on the eye of the cow/stared at the eye of the cow/with their compound eyes” (2-5). He entertains the possibility that flies, typically considered to be tiny and insignificant, have enough of a consciousness to be aware of the cow. Their host is a vast, complex organism and its eye “must be/their home planet” (36-37). Hicok wonders if they are sentient enough to conceive the solar system of this cow’s body and the even greater universe like the field in which the cow grazes.

Hicok also uses the cow as a metaphor for a higher power or god. He asks it if agnosticism is “the most reasonable position” because he believes “the mind cannot dispense with the notion/of a first cause” (32-35). Agnosticism is a neutral spiritual position in which agnostics (such as myself) believe it is impossible to know whether or not a higher power exists. After all, it would be supernatural and therefore have no natural evidence to confirm (or refute) its existence.

Agnosticism neither confirms nor denies the existence of a god, which is exactly what Hicok is debating in his poem. In this passage, he seems to struggle with the concept of god. He asks 42 – who he will probably eat later –whether or not agnosticism is the most reasonable position because he can’t put aside the concept of a fundamental origin. He can’t find any proof for the existence of a higher power but can’t dismiss it either because he doesn’t know any natural causes that could’ve created the universe, such as the Big Bang theory.

Hicok ends by stating how comforting it is “to talk/to large animals, whether they listen or not” (37-38), then repeats this line to emphasize its deeper meaning. Large animals like the cow could represent higher beings, as the cow does to the flies. Talking is a form of communication so this line could imply that Hicok is trying to communicate with a higher power. He finds it comforting to talk to the cow even without knowing if the animal understands or cares what he has to say. My interpretation of this metaphor is that Hicok finds comfort in having hope in a higher power regardless of whether or not it exists.

--Jessica Murphy