May 13, 2020

Progress, Lightning

In a time-lapse recording, you'd see
me slip north from the house to the barn,
then back again, several times a day.
I truck water for the goats, put them
out to pasture in the morning, and return
them to their stalls to feed and bed down
at dusk. The kids – the human ones – flit
and skirt about me like dragonflies out
for a joy ride, lighting, taking off again.
It is a pleasant cycle, more than a means
of passing time, building lives – a life –
over time. How should I record that? On
what time scale? Progress is slow, barely
perceptible, and yet somehow we slide
into rhythm as into a deep sleep, the kind
that restores strength and settles vision
into sense. We grow hale, supple, ready.

If the day brews a storm, the goat does will
call to go back inside early, and I will heed,
quickly and alone, under a roiling, turbid sky,
mounting to collapse, thunder bellowing from
the western edge of the county. To wait any
longer would be to court uncomely danger.
So I collect the tiny herd like gems and steal
them to shelter before lightning can arrest our
doings, blind the camera, halt the recording.