Flooded with sun, this ranch looks like a rice field,
a trick of optics. Rattlers roam boldly
because their world is dust, natives as foreign
to our ways as wolves which disappeared by 1880.
Surviving coyotes sway in ballets for the moon,
heads back, worshipping only heaven. We mete out mice
to cats and owls, fat on our grain sacked up for cattle.
Stuttering owls cough softly in our sleep
like goats, another herd we’re saving. Neighbors
drive slowly by and stare, their windows tight.
They scoff, although we’re feeding thousands,
cabrito and Texas mutton worth more than beef.
Let them laugh while little bells lead lambs and goats
to market. All week we find our cows, heads down,
praying to all the stubble they own. We fill their troughs
and call, and they come floating through a lake
of shimmering sunlight. My wife’s green eyes
play homespun when the chores are done, better chords
than fiddles and sweet guitars. After a rain,
fat cattle wade alfalfa ankle-deep. It’s grain,
not shade, hot cattle need. Often in our fields
I find buzzards, too late to save a calf
I would have gladly fed. My sons ride the range
to keep them airborne, gliding on thermals.
I hate tornadoes and slow whirlpools of wings.
Don’t look, I say, as if blind luck could save us.
Let cattle claim our pastures, let lambs turn into wool,
let buzzards wait for city dogs tossed out of cars.
This morning in the field I found another tow sack
full of kittens. They’ll grow up gladly in our barn,
making the owls work harder for their mice, saving our wheat
for export. All winter we sow alfalfa for livestock,
two of each kind in a starving world, buffalos
imported from Wyoming, a flock of ostriches which came
last night by train, wide-eyed and panting.
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