10/20/11

Pastoral #2210
By John Ogden


The simple beauty of a pastoral life,
rising with the first rays of day
to a cruise through rolling hills
still running some archaic, previous version of grass.
How simple, how beautiful, the way unmodified life
sprouts from the unenriched earth here,
the way the air still hangs heavy with the earthy scents
of cedar, hay, ancient petrochem,
and oh! How oft--
see the bucks as they thrash rutting racks
against the dawn-golden glow
of guard-fields that line the mag-ways.
See the way that light keeps death at bay,
keeps stags with does,
autosedans with autosedans
life with gentle life.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.