A Goat's Faith


A mountain goat has no God, no need for one, and I like him still look to heaven for answers. But if he did have faith, a divine certainty, surely god would be the mountain itself. The elevation his salvation, every step atop the stone incline his devout prayer, a sturdy discipline. Every hardy solid rock a divine gift never taken for granted. Every crumbling stone is passed off as the mountain's mysterious ways, a sign to the goat that life was not made to be easy.

The Wolves; the wolves below; the devil himself. I envy such simple certainty in the existence of good and evil, as simple as violent death and quiet safety.

The devil howls below like a trapped demon, a suffering soul kept so far from heaven. An evil the goat has kept in his mind at all times. The fear of damnation, the fear of gnashing teeth and bleeding pain. A fear the goat must face every time he hungers for the supple grass provided by the holy places below him. So high up but not an angel yet.

... Yet today he rests atop a stone, like a Buddha, counting breaths. Today fear drives him, to stay above. Or is it that comfort compels him. The cool wind blowing his fur. His faith in the divine protection of height unshaken when he is so close to God.

The devil howls under hoof, desperate with wanting. And I howl with him so far from that snow peaked heaven. But the goat breathes peacefully in the thin air. For the wind, God's divining breath, muffles even that.