This poem is called "Strictly Bucolic,"
and it's basically a poem about utopias.
I always enjoyed reading utopian literature,
and this is the kind of poem that one day just sort of came
out of those many, many readings.
As you know, utopias are always pastoral.
I mean, there's always a lot of cows there and sheep.
[LAUGHTER]
So it's almost like sort of someone,
the speaker in the poem is almost someone
who has just found himself or herself in one of these places.
And so, "Strictly Bucolic."
Are these mellifluous sheep, and these,
the meadows, made twice mellifluous by their bleating?
Is that the famous mechanical wind up
shepherd who comes with instructions and service
manual?
This must be the regulation white fleece, bleached
and starched to perfection, and we
could be posing for our first communion pictures
except for the nasty horns.
I'm beginning to think this might be the Angelic Breeders
Association's Millennial Company Picnic,
all expenses paid, with a few large black dogs
as special guests.
These dogs serve as ushers and usherettes.
They're always studying the rules, the exigencies
of proper deportment, when they're
not reading Theocritus, or wagging
their tails at the approach of Theodora, or is it Theodosius,
or even Theodoric?
They are theomorfic, of course.
They theologize.
Theogony is their favorite.
They also love theomachy.
Now they hand out the blue ribbons.
Ah, there is one for everyone, plus the caldrons
of stinking cabbage and boiled turnips, which
don't figure in this idyll.