Ewe, Et Al.

Et Alii, Et aliae, Et alia: masculine,
feminine, neuter. Who are you. A
re being a solfège syllable
in Guido d’Arezzo’s
arrangement of musical scales—
do, re, mi, and so forth.
Whatever. Are is also
a measurement
in the French metric system.
So much calculation,
comparison: determination. No
doubt, reassuring. But what if
you are a lambkin lost outside
the paddocks, straying to
yow. Gentle shepherd,
hardly anything is
not rural anymore. Especially
cities are fleet with
sheep. How could you raise
the bleating rascals.
Play hexametric reeds
of song, instruments of wind
tied together with thread in
two rows: syrinx. Wax
the moon, eclipse the sun.
Meet the scutoid, a
geometric twist, six-sided
at top, five at
bottom. Deep in the thorax
of beetles. Eetles. True,
scientists say, even though
previously it was all about:
prisms. Prisons, indeed.
I mean, how few
steps there are. Up among
the stars . . . . Amid
a sunken forest,
canopy of gnarled sassafras
and sandblow trees.  Just
you and I, forever and
under toe: foxes and
white-tailed deer, all in a
swale of poison ivy, holly,
prickly brier, and creeper.
Forever and a day. Catbirds
meow and black cherry bark
smells like almonds. You
suggest a Georgic—slender
oat, silvan ditties—but
few know how to do
anything—where
are the others—anymore.