false etymologies

by Lucy Campbell Whiteley

the ancestor of cattle  

is called an  

auroch 

the emphasis remains 

on the frst syllable  

in both American and 

British English 

Or (ick) 

oro  

ora  

the last one, 

a female, died 

in the Jaktorów forest 

in 1627 

when they  

took her body from 

beneath the canopy 

her hide, desiccated  

diseased, fell  

away to reveal 

a skeleton that glowed  

gold in the sun 

-- 

ora pro nobis  

-- 

great golden beasts 

thundering across the green and blue felds of Europe