“Why does the field begin to ripple | before the wind arrives in whispers, | as if there were a communication, | as if the landscape were poorly dubbed, | and we weren’t expected to notice?” ~ J. Allyn Rosser, from “As If”

Percheron Draft Horse Grazing
by The Gut (FCC)

                   

Two for Tuesday: Pastorals

At Night

it is best
to focus your eyes
a little off to one side;
it is better to know things
drained of their color, to fathom
the black horses cropping
at winter grass,
their white jaws that move
in steady rotation, a sweet sound.

And when they file off to shelter
under the trees
you will find the dark circles of snow
pushed aside, earth opening
its single, steadfast gaze:
towards stars ticking by, one by one, overhead,
the given world flaming precisely out of its frame.

~ Jane Hirshfield

                   

Lamb in Ickworth Park, UK
by Karen Roe (FCC)

Sheep in Fog

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,

Hooves, dolorous bells—
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,

A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.

They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.

~ Sylvia Plath

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