The Reasonably Good Shepherd
BY MICHAEL BAZZETT
after Vasko Popa
guards the stones
scattered across the meadow.
It’s better this way, he said.
I don’t have to worry
about them wandering.
Wolves leave them alone.
And from a distance, they
still dot the field with white.
But what do you do for wool,
milk, cheese?
Oh, I milk them, he said
and the milk is thick
and cures everything
but loneliness.
He stood to leave and seemed
as surprised as we were
when his herd began
to follow him
with a sound
like distant thunder.
In the End
BY MICHAEL BAZZETT
after Merwin
In the end, the dead did not pile up
so much as melt, given the rain
and the heat. Hairy clouds of mold
filled the fields. And on the last day,
we planted a rake handle-down
in the mud and pretended it
was a tree, hoping it might snag
one last leaf from the wind—
