Chasing Goats

Chasing Goats

 

On my birthday, I go out into the meadow.

I whistle, and goats trot out of the bushes.

Plop. Plop. Plop. More and more each year.

Soft hooves rustling grass, tails intertwined.

 

They encircle me.

They run and I chase, but they slip away,

Their silhouettes becoming haze.

More and more of them each year, and yet

I cannot catch one. Or stroke its milky pelt.

Or cuddle it to my chest, protecting it, guarding it.

 

Such is the irony of Capricorns.

They are just goats,

Vulnerable, clumsy goats.

And yet, as I approach, they defy gravity and leap,

Becoming constellations in the sky.