When God wanted to speak,
God’s mountain goat jawbone locked shut,
so God leapt silently
rock to rock, appearing at times
to sidle up a sheer vertical cliff.
A mountain goat is not a true goat, God would have said.
Males and females sprout beards, God would have said.
Cloven hoofs flex and grasp, God would have said.
Mountain goats prefer to graze
on leaves and lichen but in captivity will crunch apples
and other fruit like their domesticated kin.
Herbivore is another word for prey, God would have said,
though above the tree line
predators are rare.
Hear Lynn Domina talk about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast:
Photo by Perry Kibler on Unsplash
