Two of our rams who (mostly) coexist peacefully were lowering heads and crashing into one another as I looked out this afternoon. Looks like breeding season is underway. Most of the year our gentlemen sheep walk slowly and eat far more than some of them are worth. This time of year they make their one contribution to our enterprise before returning to their accustomed role as mobile manure producers and living lawn ornaments. Here is one of the few sheep poems I have in my collection. Written by the late New England poet and folksinger J. B. Goodenough, it looks forward to the end of all our rams' labors:

Sheep On The Town Road

Fenced beside the road
Three ewes doze.
The seven lambs, sleepy
With the work of being born,
Lean together.

The ram, in his own pen,
With nothing left to do,
Stands heavy-lidded
In the April sun,
Counting people.

From Milking in November

I found my copy of the book for $1.98 at the Main Bookshop in Sarasota back in June. The poems are spare, with a bit of a bite to them. The book is out of print, but, from the prices listed here, it seems that others value her work as well.

Here is another from the book:

Inheritance

No rum-money
Slave-money
Whale-money,
My grandfathers
Were landlubbers all.

They left me
A tilted house,
A broken-backed barn,
And six fields
hung on the hill.

Fifty years
I thought I was poor.
But I learned this:
Good dirt
Is hard to come by.