Hymn

​

Last night as I walked through the gate after work and then my walk,

I saw the goats lying on the mini-trampoline, as is their new habit at night.

This time, as I neared them, neither got up. I approached quietly and crouched down.

I watched them, the peace they lived in.

Slowly I reached out and petted Pepper more gently than usual—soft strokes

down the length of her side, feeling

the bulge of her warm belly through her dusty fur.

Before this, they have always arisen and milled around me when I come home at night,

but now Pepper remained lying, forefeet tucked, head up, gazing at something

only goats can see. I could hear her breathing,

as though she were inhaling and exhaling extra-long,

as one does sometimes in meditation.

Then she turned to me, with that breath of fermenting grass, and chewed her cud,

her jaw moving languidly side to side, as though this were another

part of her meditation. I leaned in and she offered

the flat bone of her forehead for my kiss.

Cookie lay in the opposite direction, along Pepper’s other side,

as though the ripples of communion reached her through her sister’s body,

as though my petting were being multiplied like loaves and fishes.

I thought, This is what I like—tendering the tenderest affection

and feeling it being received.

The night standing still around us.