Baby bovine grows on green pastures,
early and elated with the joys of new life
fresh and innocent to the sorrows 
of unprecedented tides.
Dry ground soaks into the morning rain,
while Hope hobbles into a new light
overcast, unsaturated, delicate — as
if each grazing cow on the far hill could consume our world too, as
each blade of grass bears a vanishing chance against the birthright of each hungry calf. 

I wonder if good things come early 
— never ready — 
wrapped in unforeseen circumstances,
— familiar yet out of place —
a new context for old consolations. 
Sacred smiles befit fledgling masks
dawned for the century ahead
with little reverence to old stones.