POETRY

Musings on the Ewe 

I am looking out the bedroom window.

Beyond our house-on-hill,
beyond the gravel’s 804,
beyond thin concrete pillars,
and patch-work wire fence,
lies a farmer’s valley-field.

Near that field’s boundary-fence
an ewe is chewing.
Either side of her
lies a lamb.

It has begun to rain.
A fast and hard shower
— child of spring.

The ewe looks up,
startled by the field’s other sheep
as they lumber
down the valley's floor.

The ewe moves
in their direction
along a sheep-path.
The two lambs follow her,
staying in their formation.

She walks slow,
stops,
every two (human) feet or so.

She reaches,
eventually,
the field’s lower wall.

She does not join the other sheep
who are standing at
the field’s bottom right-hand corner.

Instead,
she stands,
with her lambs,
at a distance,
under a canopy,
a row
of low-cut, horizontal,
Lawson cypress and hawthorn trees.

In that lies a lesson.

Be cautious,
be independent in thought
but realise:

it is not
strong,
nor weak,
nor smart,
nor stupid —
to seek,
when you need to,
protection.

Just natural.
Simply natural.