Vox Populi
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Sean Sexton: Fool’s Day
April 1
Was it they’d mostly finished their work,
how the bulls came along this morning, let
themselves be driven back to their pasture
still in ruin with holes dug from last year’s
nine-month layoff? It finishes for some
the way it began, chasing an elderly dam
in heat through one gate and out another
but not today in this last feral wind
of the season.
Now we see them making their places
out there as we add the heifer’s bulls,
not in scale with their mentors, thread-
bare from hard winter pursuit. There will
be posturing, momentary jousts, but they
seem to know it’s over, the heat of day
soon to replace this half-feigned detente
and settle them into a morbid peace, cast
upon everything present.
~~~
Sean Sexton was born and raised on his family’s Treasure Hammock Ranch and divides his time between writing, painting, and managing a 700-acre cow-calf and seed stock operation. His books include Portals: Poems (Press 53).
Copyright 2023 Sean Sexton. From Portals, Poems. Press 53, 2023.
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Laure-Anne truly echoes my sentiments–I learn so much from this poem, right down to its vocabulary. I even looked up some terms! e.g.: Heifer: A young female bovine that has not had a calf. (I didn’t know this latter part.) Dam: The mother of an animal. (New connotation of this word for me, I must admit.) Thank you, Sean!
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Thank you. I had missed seeing this yesterday, perhaps too taken by watching the birds posturing and jousting at the feeder. (My feathered herd🤣)
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good one Sean
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I’ve been with Sean in his cowpoke ATM, which he often uses to herd the cattle where they have to go. And somehow through word wizardry, he has incorporated those overlapping, lunging, brought-up-short movements of animals at close quarters into the syntax and rhythms of this poem. Living with animals is one creative writing school a poet can attend.
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What a lovely thing to say! All of it—Senor Maize! Thankyou so much—Sean
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The thanks go to you, Sean.
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Beautiful praise for an American original. Thank you, Alfred!
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Laure-Anne is exactly right. Sean blesses us with insight into a way of life utterly foreign to most of us — especially those of us cursed by an addiction to herds of city strangers and the occasional rush of a Judas goat hurtling a subway gate pursued by blue-clad bulls.
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This poem is strong in its movements, and is great relief for April Fool’s Day. Set perfectly by one who knows a feral wind from a heifer’s bull, it asks for detente as the encroaching heat gathers. Fascinating in its details and images, it will stay with me a long while.
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(…) There will
be posturing, momentary jousts, but they
seem to know it’s over, the heat of day
soon to replace this half-feigned detente
and settle them into a morbid peace, cast
upon everything present.
How beautifully said, Sean, and how this poem — another moving, powerful, fine, fine poem of yours — brings us a “world within this world we would” we would probably never be aware of. You have such a strong, deeply wise and tenderly human voice, Sean! (And the paring of “morbid” and “peace” — wow!)
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Laure-Anne and Warren and Jim and Michael: What a grateful fool you’ve made me this first day of National Poetry Month!
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I guess this is where the phrase “Put out to pasture” comes from; let’s go graze awhile.
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As a vegan, I graze everyday!
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A grazeful reply, Michael.
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Groan.
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Ha!
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