Naomi Shihab Nye: 300 Goats

In icy fields.

Is water flowing in the tank?

Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?

(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?

Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,

follower or leader.)

O lead them to a warm corner,

little ones toward bulkier bodies.

Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.

Another frigid night swooping down — 

Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,

who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,

far from here near the town of Ozona.

She shrugs, “Not really,

they know what to do. They’re goats.”



Published 2016. A picture that doesn't come together as a poem because there's too much mushiness. The detour into the Chinese zodiac leads nowhere. Frigid nights don't swoop down, they envelop you like a python. By the end, the pragmatic / dismissive "They're goats" doesn't feel earned by the poet, even if earned by the farmer (and by the goats).