42
I spoke to a nanny goat.
She was by herself in the meadow, on a chain.
Stuffed full of grass, the rain
soaking her, she bleated.
That steady bleating chimed
with my sorrow. And I answered, first in jest,
then because sorrow lingers for all time,
has one voice, does not change. The moan
of this voice I heard then
in a nanny goat left on her own.
And I heard lamenting
in a goat with a Semitic face
every other wrong, every other living thing.