Two Ways to Herd Sheep

Let us tell ourselves
stories: one evening in Lake Creek Valley
just west of Low Pass in the Coastal Mountains of western Oregon
the dog with one blue eye and one brown
is herding the sheep along a ragged fence row,
The horse knows what to do.

The rider, uncertain, gropes along,
her mind circles above in wide looping gestures
imposing a narrative on disparate images:
the dog’s blue eye, the horse’s forelock, the sheep, the fence.

The dog positions himself.
The horse, impatient with the rider, tosses her head
The sheep know just what to do.
Together, they turn--pushing through the narrow gate
and into the clapboard corral.

Another evening, another ride
The blue/brown-eyed dog is gone hunting for elk
in the Cascade mountains above Mackenzie Pass
The rider, in anxious pantomime, whistles,
shouts to the phantom dog
her pretense hovers in an uneasy cloud above her.

Still,
the horse knows. The sheep know.
Still,
they pivot, in unified homage,
a stream of instinct—narrowing themselves again
through the corral gate.
The rider knows just what to do.