Here is a picture of the younger donkey,
eyes downcast or canted in mimicry
of the slant shadows on the grass. Sun fiddles
through his fur, and everywhere he looks
is down, down where the trees kick
their spindly shanks into stories
about devils, about flaxen-maned
jennies asleep in the boughs,
waiting for tallish drinks of princely water
to wake them. Meanwhile, the older donkey is out
of the picture, fretting in more philosophical
pastures. Thirty-odd is too late
for happy endings and magic trees; he needs to know,
do grasses grow up or do they thrust in their roots,
and what do the humans dream? Let them hasten
to their deaths who know not the secret,
sensuous rewards of patience
and the beasts will gather to keen
at the clifftop, to bray for rebirth.
He, white and older than he can endure,
would like to be among them.