PASTORAL

The problem was I was possessed
by these sorts of absolutes. Like if I began
walking I could not stop—I could go for weeks,
eating from vineyards, the fog rolling over me
like a white case. You were the same,
so we went walking. We began with a cruelty
that faded over time, never stopping to drink,
your holy hair tied back. Monastic,
I followed behind. The rain collecting
in each footprint like a dish. I was told
to believe in a spiritual act which follows
the physical. But I couldn’t shake the feeling
that the spirit comes first. On the road
we saw bright arrows. Strange alphabets.
Under my clothes I wore a long dark suit
which I removed clumsily in the wet air.
The sheep closed in all around, watching me
with their thin faces. One night we slept
in their pasture, soft with water. In the dark
I heard the path of a man, animals crying out
as he moved on the hill. For many months,
you and I had known we would keep going
until we arrived. I suppose it was the limit
I was wondering about. You had the soul
of a pilgrim, taunted by a kind of horizon.
The man continued. I know it can be difficult
to approach the limit alone, but of course
he went that way--known but unseen, a god
in the kingdom of sheep. He was the shepherd.

Julia Falkner lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has read her work at the Library of Congress, the Poetry Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.