There’s Been a Llama Sighted

The llama escaped by, first, corralling horses
    into one ever-diminishing angle
      from which they could retreat
        no farther,
And when he saw he had the horses cowered,
He dove over the barbed wire and was gone —
A male loose, homeless, panicked,
And the sun in the sky a dry yellow chrysanthemum,
About to drop its petals, one by one.

His nuts are gone.

See, if you’re going to take the nuts from a llama,
You’ve got to take the eye-teeth, too,
Because you have not blinded him enough
By taking only his nuts.

The eye-teeth must come out.
He still can see — cockeyed, yes, but he bares his eye-teeth, cocks his head,
Squints sideways, and with what’s left
He can still see the honey of the autumn sun,
Spilling its treasure,
Dropping gold by golden flake on End of Summer Road.

Surely he will not berserker all the way to winter?

Maybe not.

The problem is to catch him —
Either on this side of summer,
Before the golden light is gone,
Or on the other,
When he emerges,
Sleeping,
In the cool blue shade of dawn.