They have begun to circumambulate new slopes to graze
around the house
learning to make their circles between troughs and ponds,
forty-five days away
for the first new mothers to lick a calf up to suck
for the next nine months.
A week off the irrigated green, they’ve overcome the shock
of dry hollow stems
to make a home where we can watch and worry,
as is our custom—
we get know them. About a third will make the herd
for ten years.
With so much time together, we operate by instinct,
you and I,
triggered by well-worn habits, the angle of the sun
and the length of shadows
these young girls already know—a second nature
we had to learn.
drycrikjournal 