Cattle kingdom
It is remarkably easy/to turn my attention to/detail
(Llano Estacado, West Texas. Photo courtesy of Robert Hammer Photography.)
Cattle kingdom
It is remarkably easy
to turn my attention to
details
Hail, the height of grass,
snows, and the run of April
rivers
A thousand things make a world,
like worms in the ears and rust
on wheat.
It is remarkably difficult,
as I age, to recall the grass
slicing of hands
(I think of an ache or sting
to relate, whose point I cannot
make)
Learning that cattle have tongues
tough as hides, a strophic shroud,
those thousand things on palm
or hoof:
Blue grama in the throat
wire diced land
staked planes
freight rates
mills without wind
How thirst can blind
one thousandfold.
-Jeremy Nathan Marks