Steer

The following poem, "Steer," is one I began working on in mid-December. I can hardly remember working for so long on a single poem, writing and rewriting, filling my journal with revisions. I cut, then expanded, then cut some more. Finally I was able to come up with a draft that I liked. It's been sitting for some time.

Now that it is finished (or at least as close to finished as I can make it), there are a number of things I admire about it - the description of the Texas landscape, the steer wandering off from the ranch, the quick process of dying, and the slow process of decay. The last lines beg the reader to ask the question: what does this all mean? Where is the purpose behind the process of decay; breaking life into dirt? And, of course, what follows: what is the reason for living, if only to return to dust?


STEER

Death is a way of speaking,
breaking bits of life into dirt.
In August, the raw mountains
of Mexico shade the plain,
which stretches out across the
border into the Texas sun.
Thickets of brush grow where
the river dries up, its many
estuaries reduced to small
pools, stagnant water in
channels of red-dry rock.
A little way out from the stream,
a steer wanders off from Laughlin Ranch,
grunting with each step, hooves
catching on cracks in the soil.
Stumbling into the red rock-bed,
his joints go limp, body collapses.
In silence, he stares toward
the mountain shade.
Within the hour the steer’s
eyes tire and go dry – he dies.
Over days, weeks, his eyes
come to harbor shadows,
empty to the open air.
His teeth become exposed.
His chest, a bare cage of bone.
A cloud of orange dust rises
in the desert breeze, fades
to gold as it reaches eye level.