It's Still Life

The Spirit of Goats

Sure as rocks roll down hills,
the woman felt it split her skull.

Felt
the explosive roar.
Felt starlight
descend all round her.

Heard a herald ring in her ears.

This storm
of no small power,
renegade skies dared
mock the Mara.

A flood
that hurled trees, breaking
into one another,
a cataclysmic
conscious crush.

Black crows chose for the sky,
panicked, go go go go as
two goats fled into the siege.

The trees, the plains, and fences,
houses, huts, corn and stores,
the thunder, lightning,
and the sky washed away.

Two hidden bodies in upturned roots.

The moon watched Binti Mbuzi
and her mystic save, maybe
the Miracle Man’s hand at work.
But not so for her mother,

swept away with the ferryman.

Binti Mbuzi tends her goats.
The goatherd girl
sits on long grass plains,
a girl protected
by the spirit of goats.

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177-words. #13 (draft) of The Goatherd. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Imagery and poems ©Misky 2023.