Hi Mike, thanks for yuor comments. Just for fun I'll explain how I parsed
the first four lines. Though I think it is confusing in places and could do
with a bit more tidying up perhaps.

There's a gap in the drystone wall
on Shap Fell near Huck's Brow -
[I remember it] a number of years ago, yet [I see it] now
in this dark game of going to sleep.

bw
SallyE

on 26/4/04 12:08 pm, Mike Horwood at [log in to unmask] wrote:

>> Hello Sally,
> This is great fun and a very enjoyable read. I get a bit lost with the grammar
> in the opening four lines, though. Should the first verb `There´s´ be `There
> was´ since you later write `a number of years ago´. Also, at the end of line 4
> I want a comma since this doesn´t read like the end of a sentence. Are these
> typos, or have I got myself muddled?
> 
> 
> Best wishes,   Mike
> 
> 
> 
>> Lähettäjä: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>> Päiväys: 2004/04/25 su AM 12:53:47 GMT+03:00
>> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
>> Aihe: sub: Counting Sheep
>> 
>> 
>> Counting sheep
>> 
>> There's a gap in the dry-stone wall
>> on Shap Fell near Huck's Brow -
>> a number of years ago, yet now
>> in this dark game of going to sleep.
>> The first sheep thinks about going through,
>> a greyish white sheep, a greyish black wall.
>> Green grass. The sheep hesitates.
>> It runs through, stamping its feet.
>> The second sheep won't go through
>> It turns in a half circle and is lost
>> in the other ninety eight milling sheep.
>> Another two sheep go through.
>> There are now sheep one, three and four
>> in field two, but sheep two somewhere
>> in field one. Another sheep goes through.
>> OK, four sheep in the new field,
>> eyeing each other and  the uncropped grass.
>> There's a rainbow over the fell.
>> Pale greens in the hillside and grey sky,
>> a different grey from the sheep or the wall
>> and paler inside the rainbow than outside.
>> An outer rainbow appears, a double bow.
>> Oh, now there are ten sheep in the field,
>> nintely in the first field. Has sheep two
>> gone through? Impossible to say.
>> Which idiot said counting sheep
>> gets you to sleep? I switch on my lanp
>> and write this. I know sleep happens.
>> I am fairly confident I shall sleep tonight,
>> that is, before tomorrow morning.
>> All the sheep fade away and not into
>> my dreams. The question is this:
>> do these hundred sheep exist or don't they?
>> Perhaps only those exist who
>> got through the gap. Perhaps
>> the second sheep, the one whose identity
>> was lost in the crowd, exists
>> or perhaps they all exist in the field
>> with rainbows, on Huck's Brow.
>> Surely there were not exactly a hundred,
>> their number could never be ascertained
>> and why sheep? Moveable countable
>> white woolly shapes with faces and feet
>> and personalities lost 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 violins.
>> This is turning out to be one of those poems
>> that won't stop, like the few minutes
>> in which you intended going to sleep,
>> but you didn't go to sleep, so this happened,
>> and look at you now. Start again.
>> A double rainbow over Huck's Brow.
>> This dark game of going to sleep.
>> 
>> Saly Evans
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>