Seventy-seven pounds of wool on that merino sheep who got lost
in the Outback. Two years carrying his burden, could barely see,
so much wool covering his eyes. Face and legs scratched and bloody,
must have run into trees, brambles as he wandered alone, searching
for grass, clover, weeds. Rescuers dubbed him Baarack, but his ordeal
wasn’t funny—he barely survived, underweight beneath his load.

Most sheep need shearing every year, bred to keep us warm.
Before we domesticated them some ten thousand years ago,
they grew long, fluffy fleece in winter and shed it in summer.
The fleece found on Baarack could yield sixty-one sweaters,
nine hundred and eighty socks. Only Chris, a ram from Canberra,
had him beat—ninety pounds of wool, twice his body weight.

I know those lost sheep deserve to have their own poem,
deserve to be more than parable or metaphor. And yet
I can’t stop thinking how some of us carry pain and grief
like a fleece we can’t shed, how we wander with it for years,
scratched and starving and staggering beneath its weight,
hoping some good shepherd will find us and shear it all away.

You can listen to a conversation about this poem on the Reformed Journal Podcast.