Old Roads, New Stories:
Why We Have Bighorns
by Rob Carney

A Literary Series
 

Because Australia. Because California. Because Katrina. Because Maria. Because the Bahamas. Because Oklahoma: 2,000 earthquakes in the last five years, so what the hell?
 

Why We Have Bighorns

The mountains have questions
that the sky can’t answer,

and the valleys have rivers
but the green on their banks can’t answer,

and the trees hear
everything the wind says, the birds,

but can’t speak,
so the bighorns were born.

Just look at them. Solid.
From their heads—

a pair of question marks.
From the cliff-face walls

that watch their travels,
echoes bounce

then disappear.
They ask, “What are the humans doing

with their lives so short
yet full of destruction?

Why do they call their path progress
when the footing is so unsure?”

Rob Carney’s new book The Book of Sharks is available now from Black Lawrence Press. Previous books include 88 Maps, Story Problems, and Weather Report.
 
Read poetry by Rob Carney appearing in Terrain.org: 6th Annual Contest Finalist, 4th Annual Contest Winner, and Issue 30. And listen to a new radio interview with Rob Carney, and here’s an older radio interview.
 

Header photo by skeeze, courtesy Pixabay.