Deny the Shepherd

Deny the shepherd

   and head for goat hills,

hills that echo when you bleat

   your troubles into them.

An echo is the only sound reply

    for unsound minds;

minds that want to climb every hill

   and live among thorns,

minds that care not

    for green pastures or still waters,

minds with eyes that see snares

  in every mossy meadow and tamed brook.

'Cause a billygoat knows, what a billygoat knows...

for where there is comfort, there are sheep,

    and where there are sheep,

           there are wolves,

not the least of these that guide

 these comfort creatures to undisturbed places

       so they can be counted,

inventoried and ear-marked,

   branded and sheared.

And those that are on his left, get burned...

And those that are on his right, get burned...

    a terrible economy of souls.

'Cause ain't a sheep alive knows he's herd,

    but will one day see that the place

his Father left to make for him

             was a dinner plate.

Deny the shepherd,

    deny the wolf.

Bleat to your heart's content

        and eat your fill of weeds,

'cause it's so cold up here,

      it's so cold you can see

the slaughterhouse smoke drifting ceremoniously,

       like the sacrifices of so many centuries

drifting right up to the shepherd's mouth,

             a mouth that never closes,

  each morsel baa-baa-baa-ing out

     the endless litany of the still-born-again dead,

                praying,

"father, father, 

      why have you forsaken us?"

  but the mouth swallows that too,

          and there is no echo.

Deny the shepherd,

     deny the wolf.