Little Goat

God is not light upon light, no more than goat is need upon need although there, where it grazes, it is sun upon coat within which ticks and stray-blown feed burrow into the pocked skin of such foul scent covering the underflesh heart that could eat this farmer's grain or the barren mountain's bark high in the solitude of sheer animal peace laid over sheer animal terror. We ask the animal afflicted by its time, its impoverished American meadow that drove it to find birch from which to strip its easy feed to abide with us. It does not need us. We think it needs us. We must forgive God God's story.