The clouds release the rain at dawn
onto the crazy goats that climb
atop the double-storied barns
that are painted red and unused.
The horizontal pupils gaze
the periphery of the glade
to see the sun peep from behind
the parting thunderheads aflash.
for the groundlings near jaggéd wire;
but once trip-trapping on tin roofs,
angular eyes mark foreign fields.
The earliest domestic stock
peers across green and wonders:
nannies, billies, and cabritos;
the flock of grandfather ibex.
The kids linear, parallel,
crowd the matriarch to receive
three point five percent butterfat;
without shepherds the livestock stands,
no farmhouse appears near the scene.
These quadrupeds of silly voice,
without the aid of husbandry,
magically subsist apart.
or rather to leap from sharp points
in the moment of assembly,
two species curiously face,
play. The fenceposts are split and rotten,
the barbed-wire dulled by corrosion.
The goats know the wall is feeble;
nature will swallow them in weeks.
Agile with balance of ninjas,
goats long to scale mountain walls,
beyond the galvanized barn tops,
ever heavenward, curious.
An escape artist testing pens,
the animal resists herding,
constantly nibbling at restraint,
an inquisitive ruminant.
ascendant tail; the shackles cleared.
*[ WSB ].
Occupation: Poet. 