Advice from an Old Goat

Sylvie

Where are you going, as I stand here behind wise eyes that watch you as you pass?
And what is it you are looking for?
I used to be your favorite, you know, your first.
I remember the hours we spent each day together sitting in this field.
It hardly seems like fourteen years.
And all the time, you never seemed to mind the green-trimmed holes I chewed in your t-shirts, or the way I marked you as my own with rubbings against your knee.
We jumped and climbed... and frolicked beneath a blue sky, you and I.
And you brought me goldenrod.
I know…
Life.




Others younger have come and gone.
Bigger and bolder—in every way they made sure I knew my place was always to be the very last.



Once a dozen, now we are just three.
But who would have thought I would be queen?
I know…
Life.



Stop a while and sit with me.
Marvel at my soft and gentle lips, the whorl of hair on my forehead, the brushed-bare black of my knees.
Let me untie your shoes and wipe the sweat from your brow.

You will find the sun of an autumn afternoon to be of the most perfect kind.
Crickets are singing from the grasses of the field.
We can rest together beneath the wide blue sky.
And you can bring me goldenrod.