Hannah Sessions, Early Morning Fog With Hay Down (oil on canvas)
sought to fuse what we
know about ewes with what
we know about music,
observing a herd of female
ruminants foddered
the tunes of Wagner,
to which they made
ecstatic milk, whose swells
and lows were enough
to make a lamb choke.
After some turbulent early
hours, however, the lambs
thrived, though little
is known about how allegro
affects the ruminant stomach
in the long term. Of note:
no ewes supernovaed. No soil
rose up and assumed
mammal form. No moons
met earth and two-stepped.
Just sheep, just sheep and
sheep and song. And when
the song ended, just grass
and bats and the loneliness of
dreams, even the realized kind.