Loading...

Ginger

Ginger
BY CARL RAKOSI
Am I the only one
                          watching
my neighbour’s
                     frolicksome goat,
Ginger,
           tied to a pecan tree?
All morning
                 it has been examining
an empty bushel basket
                                 and has lifted
one leg delicately
                           like a circus horse
as if to roll it,
                          but whether to do that
or to butt it
                    with its small horns,
that is the question.
                                Not of great moment,
no signing of the Charter,
                                       but like air music,
quickest of the elements.
                                      Towards which I leaped!
 
In form
           its own grace,
appearing,
               as it passed
in retrospect, classical.
 
The real goat stayed,
                                imperturbable,
the body solid
                     as a four-square loom
and delivered me
                        from abstraction.
His coloring,
                    greyish-soft shades,
their dark and light
                       passing into each other
as in an antique rubbing.
 
I now found myself
                           sitting so near,
my shade,
              as in the Inferno,
sensed his,
                 but he gave no sign
of my presence,
                       even when I stroked him
and my heart leaped
                             at the gentle fleece,
too fine for a hard life.
He continued nibbling
                                on a dry bush.
 
I would not have believed
                                      unconcern
could bolster the man in me
                                         and be so enduring.
Sic transit, not caring
                                   whether it is recognized,
The Divine
               (from another age).
 
He was poking
                    into the underbush now
and reached across my head
                                       for the small spiny twigs.
 
At that the phase
                          changed
and a sensuous trembling
                                    hung in the air,
as when a bee is about
                                 to descend
on blossoming clover,
                                and I
felt myself being pulled
                                    as by a line
from the invisible
                           other side
to enter goathood,
                           deeper than sight.
Liked or faved by...
Other works by Carl Rakosi...



Top