By Naomi Shihab Nye
In icy fields.
Is water flowing in the tank?
Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?
(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?
Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,
follower or leader.)
O lead them to a warm corner,
little ones toward bulkier bodies.
Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.
Another frigid night swooping down —
Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,
who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,
far from here near the town of Ozona.
She shrugs, “Not really,
they know what to do. They’re goats.”
Source: Poetry (December 2015)
Poet Bio
More By This Poet
Every day as a wide field, every page
1
Standing outside
staring at a tree
gentles our eyes
We cheer
to see fireflies
winking again
Where have our friends been
all the long hours?
Minds stretching
beyond the field
become
their own skies
Windows doors
grow more
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Look through a word
swing that sentence
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Kneeling outside
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sturdy green
glistening blossoms
under the breeze
that carries us silently
2
And...
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Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
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sizzle like moth wings,
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So much of any year is flammable,
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Orange swirling flame of days,
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I have no theory of radiance,
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