In an exercise also from "Writing Poetry" by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace, my task was to consider William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark" and then write a poem of similar length and stanza form about a similar subject in which a speaker comes upon an animal unexpectedly, looks closely at it and reacts in some way.
I was obviously still in memory mode...
Lambing Season
Bumping along in the jeep, we find a ewe
cast by the fence in the bottom paddock.
My heartbeat quickens as the jeep slows up,
my Dad assessing the level of need.
"Stay here 'til I say," he murmurs and eases
himself out and alongside her body he probes
her protruding tummy and she, eyes wide,
nostrils flaring, trusting, nevertheless, his help.
His hand silently motions, my breath exhales
like a released balloon as I tumble, stumble,
sink down beside him to watch, I think,
a miracle delivered - I have seen this before.
What? Put my hand in? But I can't, I haven't -
I look up to a confident, brown twinkle,
then my gaze falls through the paddock to the blood.
Her belly, my chest, rising, falling.
I watch my arm disappear inside her.
When I next look, twin lambs are outside her.
BY JEANETTE JONES
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