SHEEP ON THE BROWN HILL
There are sheep, hopeless,
round-shouldered clouds
of wool. They have the eyes
of demons
yet the mouths
they clamp round nettles
seem innocent of teeth.
They have the cloven hoof
yet their legs
seem afterthoughts, a child's
charcoal lines
drawn at all four corners.
Knee-high again,
I hang like a casualty
on the barbed-wire fence,
gaping, contemplating
sheep in orbit
around the hilltop house.
No route or destination;
no sense of purpose
to be found within
this witless shifting traffic.
I look for patterns,
signs of navigation.
Sun moves through thin clouds;
wind wraps the house,
sings in wires.
Sheep crop and shuffle
all day long. Nothing alters
on the brown hill.
One generation inhales;
its descendants sigh.
I am an old coat now,
stretched on thorns.
Night slides across and finds me,
purposeless yet blessed.
12:22:32 AM 
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