What For? If Only The Goat Can Tell. Poem by RIC BASTASA

O! The silly goat could have been a dove
White and meek
Soundless in the journey to air
Dove to another dove
Satisfied from among its likes
The horns could have been feathers
In a bird’s body

Another completing dove could have waited
Only if the silly goat knew
The transfiguration of its feet to claw
Its whiskers to beak
The goat’s life would have been complete
And fulfilled
But this the silly goat will never know
& learn and untie
& solve the crazy knot
That it has never untangled
Never has he learned from all the ages
Of his grass life
The seeds that the dove peck
And keep on its throat down to its guts
Its tummy

The goat stays
In the open field
Preoccupied with grass
And grass alone
Abiding by the rules of his master
Imprisoned in its cage
To the rules of their games
Suffering
But never understands the same