Good Morning Sally E.
I note with a smile the time of your submission and wonder if this helped?
Interesting your use of the word 'countable' so close on my own piece about
the mathematical  notion of 'countable' infinities, amongst other things.
The flow of the poem has a feel of instantanaity, of it being written as I
read, if that makes sense.In the context of the purpose of the piece I do
not think the repetitions matter, I assume you were worried about the word
'sheep'.
Still I hope you got off to sleep eventually.
My cure is to imagine I am batting in an important phase of a game of
cricket when all about me fail, I set about the bowling and deliver my team
from disaster. I never get to fifty runs, before I am fast asleep!! Cricket
has that effect on some people.
Arthur.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sally Evans" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2004 5:09 AM
Subject: Sheep: version fro those who do not like word repetition


> Counting sheep
>
> There's a gap in the dry-stone wall
> on Shap Fell near Huck's Brow -
> many years ago, yet now
> in this dark game of going to sleep.
> The first sheep thinks about going through,
> a greyish white creature, a blackish wall.
> Green grass. The animal hesitates.
> It runs through, stamping its feet.
> Second in the queue won't go through
> It turns in a half circle and is lost
> in the ninety eight strong milling herd.
> Another two go through.
> There are now numbers one, three and four
> in meadow two, but that named two somewhere
> in pasture one. Another one goes through.
> OK, four yearlings in the new enclosure,
> eyeing each other and the uncropped fodder.
> There's a rainbow over the fell.
> Pale greens in the hillside and dull sky,
> a different colour from the Dollies or the wall
> and paler inside the arc than outside.
> An outer curve appears, a double bow.
> Now there are ten clowns in the growing hay,
> nintely before the gate. Has the hesitator
> gone through? Impossible to say.
> Which idiot said counting thus
> leads to the land of nod? I click a switch
> and write this. I know I shall doze off,
> I am fairly confident of it tonight,
> that is, before tomorrow morning.
> The baa-lambs fade away and not into
> my dreams. The question is this:
> do the hundred quadrupeds exist or not?
> Perhaps only those who
> got through the gap. Or
> she whose identity
> was lost in the crowd.
> Or perhaps they all do in the place
> with weather phenomena, in the Lake District.
> Surely there were not exactly a centurion,
> that could never be ascertained
> and why that species? Moveable countable
> white woolly shapes with faces and feet
> and personalities confused in the masses.
> I give up. The unshaded light bulb
> (not lit) on the ceiling has a shadow
> from my bedside lamp. It is waisted
> and looks very much like a violin.
> I could go to sleep counting musical instruments.
> This is turning out to be one of those poems
> that won't stop, like the few minutes
> in which you intended dozing off,
> but you didn't, so this happened,
> and look at you now. Start again.
> A double colour scale in Cumbria.
> Darkly amused, I court delirium.
>
> Saly Evans
>
>