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.
15 Responses
Oh so good. So packed full it needs multiple readings. Thank you.
Thanks, Gloria
Beautiful. Thank you.
Thanks , Janice.
I’m thinking of the inner sheep and inner shepherd to be found in each of us. With a salute to the wonder of this poem and how this poet harnesses details.
Thanks, Emily
Beautifully written. Love it!
Thanks, Brenda
Margaret, what a delight to read your writing here. I am proud to know you. Thank you. Keep up the powerful writing.
Thanks, Nancy
Margaret,
This poem is beautiful. You teach us things, you deepen our wisdom, and you do it with such careful craft. Thank you!
Thanks so much, Mark. It’s nice to see that your poem is the next one published. It’s beautiful and so timely. I’m looking forward to listening to your podcast interview too.
I remember reading your articles when you worked for the Kalamazoo Gazette Missed them when you were no longer doing them
Thanks, Marilyn. I enjoyed doing that work at the Kalamazoo Gazette, although retirement also has its rewards.
I love poetry, even if my intellect is often more engaged than my feelings.
At first, I thought I saw in the rhythm and narrative a touch of TS Eliot.
https://poetryarchive.org/poem/journey-magi/
The impression did not last long. For if TSE constructs, MDR recounts.
Where TSE seeks a rich and imaged vocabulary, we rest in the sheep pens with MDR. She writes as she speaks.
As indeed, I do. But I do not pretend that it’s a literary work!
I might go further, but it’s only supposition.
I do not write as a therapeutic process under guise of being autobiography either…