Greener Pastures

Dreaming of pastures,

land full of fountains,

thirst resting upon the mouth- 

never quite seeking nourishment,

only fulfillment.

But will you ever be full

if all you notice is the grass?

Will you ever be full

if all you notice is the cow upon it

and not your pastured self,

being pulled from both sides

to keep those seeking your service

from running dry?

Greener grass

or a greener diet?

Greener pastures

or the green-eyed monster?

Perception traps the pasture

inside a single reality.

And you, the cow,

keep thinking you're milking it

while they're milking you—

feeding you the illusion

that you are not the cow.

Courage the cowardly cow.

The farmers are leaving the farm

while the cows remain trapped in the kraal,

leading themselves from pasture to pasture,

meeting visitors from every walk of life—

cows who escaped their own enclosures,

each carrying a different story

of what freedom was supposed to look like.

Don't recreate their pasture.

Take what you can from the encounter.

A glimpse.

A lesson.

A possibility.

Leave the fallen leaves of the past

where they fell.

Let the old skin shed.

Let the rupture rupture.

Let the pasture sink

deep enough to be remembered

without needing to be returned to.

Let the visitors drink

from the cows they've milked.

Let the cows roam freely to the edge

and feel the possibility of freedom

brush against their skin.

Let today remind them

that there are pastures

beyond what they imagined.

But remind the cow, too:

the unknown is not always greener.

The pasture is patched.

The grass grows because

of the pressure of its feet,

because everything it carries

eventually presses itself

into the ground.

Remind the cow

that the pasture is within.

That green is a diet of perception.

That grass grows greener

when placed beside another.

That comparison

can turn any pasture

into something you have not yet had.

And perhaps

the question was never:

Which pasture is greener?

Perhaps it was:

What am I willing to give

to live in this one?

And:

Who am I

when no farmer is calling,

no fence is holding,

and there is no other pasture

to compare my grass to?