Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 6,000,000 visitors since 2014 and over 9,000 archived posts.
Naomi Shihab Nye: 300 Goats
In icy fields.
Is water flowing in the tank?
Will they huddle together, warm bodies pressing?
(Is it the year of the goat or the sheep?
Scholars debating Chinese zodiac,
follower or leader.)
O lead them to a warm corner,
little ones toward bulkier bodies.
Lead them to the brush, which cuts the icy wind.
Another frigid night swooping down —
Aren’t you worried about them? I ask my friend,
who lives by herself on the ranch of goats,
far from here near the town of Ozona.
She shrugs, “Not really,
they know what to do. They’re goats.”
~~~
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) is an Arab American poet, editor, songwriter, and novelist. Born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, she began composing her first poetry at the age of six. Nye received the 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature in honor of her entire body of work as a writer, and in 2019 the Poetry Foundation designated her the Young People’s Poet Laureate for the 2019–21 term.
Copyright Naomi Shihab Nye. First published in Poetry (Chicago).
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Another gift from Naomi Shihab Nye. She has given us many.
In our times and culture, with human beings intent on denigrating each other as “scapegoats,” she turns attention to the four-legged kind, who, like many non-humans, have a different strategy for survival, out of a necessity we humans forget to curry. Yes, goats, catbirds, deer, each have a way forward as part of their nature, and chances are that as a species, each will survive. Not so sure about us, however. This may seem platitudinous, but unfortunately it’s a real situation.
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Yes. Very real. Thank you, Jim.
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Wise, wise woman that she is — with this most inspiring ability to find a certain peace, a kind of fate-acquiescence, even the most fragile one, in these most challenging times. “Oh lead us to her (warm) corner” — such a remarkable understanding and acceptance of our immense imperfections in those lines.
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Well-said, Laure-Anne.
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I love this poet, and i love this poem…but not for reasons spoken above. I find it a tragic poem, not just optimism 101. I read its finale with a mountain sized lump in my throat and heart…i read it with the wisdom of the poet and its final shrugging speaker saying yes, nature has to survive…but us…not so much. Listen to the Davos bombast today. leader after leader does NOT know what to do. each with a me me me proscription to save itself, while the goats freeze together. yes, the goats will continue to be goats and survive our human madness. Humans…not so much. Again, I love Naomi’s subtle and complex poem for its double message. Love this poem..because for me…it speaks truth to power, nature to wannabe kings.
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Brilliant and passionate response to the poem, Margo. Thank you.
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Thank you
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There is something about Naomi, her presence, her poems, that makes me feel at peace and that somehow we will get through this horrid time. She gives me hope.
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me too.
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Wow, this poem is so complex, it says so much, it says it so simply, with such an amazing turn that you can be forgiven for thinking you missed the largest part of the poem.
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I know what you mean.
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So wise is she. I’m waiting for the whole world to think like Naomi, how happy we could be if it happened. She once quoted a young boy in her poem who said in reply as if to us all: “Have a better dream!” Only children and angels would say such a thing.
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Only children and angels.
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This glorious poet is so good at celebrating simple humanity. I love this.
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Thanks, Kathryn. Naomi really is wonderful.
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