Hi Sally,
Great fun!
I love the word-play, word-links, playfully taking its time, feeling much
like the experience itself.
Bob
>From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: sub: Counting Sheep
>Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:53:47 +0100
>
>
>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
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