As if at Marvel’s Mercantile and Feed
           you could purchase a pasture
           heft it on your shoulder
           and walk out squinting into the sun—
           suddenly a guru of grasses.

As if you could promote a pasture

           urge fescue whispering against the mare’s fetlock
           to reach for the belly

           or tutor the calf sleeping curled like a soft boulder
           beside the heavy-uddered cow,
           to set her sights above the fragrant field.

Pour from a sack, if you can,
           the red-wing blackbird’s solitary
                        kon-ka-reeeeee
           above a jubilance of crickets,
                                  
           or coax beyond resplendence
           the spider’s tightrope swung
           between stalk and wire.
                      
Mice that scamper free
           beneath the hawk’s dark eye
           already know success. 
          
Be content to buy instead the red plastic tub.
           Set it beneath the apple tree.  
           Bid cattle come