Across the green expanse I see the sheep.
They have spent so many seasons here, young and old.
Their home is this valley,
their world is the sky, the grass, the dung.
They share their home with a lone pale horse
who only wants to go back east.

One day he’ll remember what East
he meant. There is no use in asking the sheep,
for this pale riderless horse.
He can’t even recall his home, he’s so old,
and all he remembers now is the dung
that covers the valley.

The animals spend most of their lives in this valley,
or at least all of it up to now, before they head east.
If they noticed how much dung
they had created they’d realize that sheep
don’t ever get this old
and their only companion is this horse.

Why is there only one horse
living in this valley,
growing old,
never making it back east?
He is starting to think he’s a sheep,
and he notices there is now less grass and more dung.

Every day there is more dung.
Every day the horse forgets more and more how to be a horse
and starts to become a sheep
mindlessly wandering this no-name valley
never making it back east.
Every day they just get old.

It is starting to feel like they have always been old
and their world has always been covered with dung.
Thinking this way, they will never get back east
and the horse
will die in this valley
along with these sheep.

They will get very old before they ever know the true nature of this horse.
Filled with dung, this valley
points towards the East but now there are only mindless sheep.

(I chose the sestina words from the names for various gates in Jerusalem.)