As if it has always belonged there,
it appears one morning in a sparse field
of poppies and crabgrass. Unshorn. Scraggly.
Shaggy mantle the colour of wet clay.
Udders swollen, sagging to brush the earth.
Face grizzled. Eyes wary. It lowers its head
and begins to chew. Stops. Lifts its head
towards that wall of mountains. Calling? Nods.
Then drops down again. Perhaps to savour
the nonchalance of the moment. The ball
of the sun. The uproar of cicadas
in the shade banana trees. The sheepdog’s startle
at a specimen quasi-familiar
but not quite fitting the portraits flitting
through her catalogue. Neither sheep nor goat,
it grazes in laconic unconcern.
At a steady pace governed by some clock
as accurate as the town’s. And then.
A day. Two. It disappears one morning
from a field of wildflowers and tufts
of never-say-die grass. As if it
had never been there. Ah, may you climb
to where you can choose a name for yourself.