Deserted Sheep

 

Lambs, jostled, forgive

the wolf, break

its taste in lamb

into a toddler's gallop,

bumping headlong

 

into thick-piled ewes--

lanolin slicking their noses, as

they stumble on the fescue

dotting the valley,

a pointillist's landscape.

 

No shepherd, no sheep dog,

no gate to enter; a small,

orange plastic snow fence,

neatly staked at four corners

with steel posts,

gives form to the sheepcote.

 

The last ounce of sun

a violet tremor the wolf

forgives, lingering

along the western ridge,

the shepherd's fear

returning to the valley.

 

A ram, brown and flocculent,

secures a silent corner

of the fold--eyes intent

upon a slow-moving shadow.

 

Scott Edward Anderson/The Nebraska Review Award Winner, 1997

Black Angus, Winter

                                    (For Paul Niemiec)

I.

The angus rap their noses

on the ice--

fat, gentle fists

rooting water

from the trough.

They kick up clods of dirt

as a madrigal of shudders

ripples their hides.

 

II.

The barn needs painting,

it's chipped like ice

from an ice-cutter's axe.

The fence also needs work,

posts leaning, wire slack.

The Angus keep still--

they're smarter than we think,

know all about electricity.

 

III.

I cross the barnyard

on my way back from the pond,

ice skates keeping time

against the small of my back.

The sting of the air

is tempered by the heat of manure.

Through the barn door:

Veal calf jabbing at her mother's udder.

 

Scott Edward Anderson/The Nebraska Review Award Winner, 1997