Cattle Country I.B. Iskov       They herd toward dwindling high ground, buffalo with mud grizzled and bent refugees in the sacrificial badlands   Stars could not eclipse the wandering useless fury on an empty sea the terrain and clouds touch and die thunderous winds blow wild half-insane in the midst of Creation   With a spiritual heritage all their own they caress the pulse of Nature’s soil naked   nomads on the muscled aching wind-tossed prairies rumpled leaden images rend sharp distances while some almighty hand slaps the empty air with rage   The unofficial history bloated figures nibble on the surface of time in a tender existence without swallows the low-hung ceiling distends the primordial horizon   The reckless gray freedom of the bison barbed by silence pure and pale in the arms of evening they cluster beneath the remote endangered sky brave the wake of day       ©2008 I.B. Iskov