New Moon Meditation – The Mountain Goat
I envision a mountain goat
It is male
A worn copper bell
hangs under his chin
He has buck teeth
bright white like Chiclets
startling blue eyes
a smile that lifts more
on the right than on the left
a laugh hides under his
bottom lip
The mountain goat eats roots
My roots
Plunged deeply in the
centre of the earth
He nibbles noncommittally
The laugh tumbles out
stands and shakes a fist
at the goat then hops on
his right hip and sits
My roots are bitter with indecision
lemon-ed with low-esteem
I feel bad for the goat
He takes one big bite
closes his mouth
gags
then jumps up up up
till he gets to the top
of a mountain where
He spits out my roots
which are actually
long lines of letters
stanzas & sentences
they fly like Canada Geese
in poetic formations
The laugh crawls from the
goat’s hip back into his mouth
There are letters stuck
in the goat’s goatee
*With thanks to Charis and Zoe for sharing the meditation with me, and to Liz Worth for the amazing guided meditation. Happy New Moon, y’all!
VANESSA SHIELDS, writer 