Beyond Reason
A friend—that’s right, what else could you call him—shepherd?
His wife it was who built the flock. After she died,
the big money squeezed him—and the other locals—out
of poultry farming. So, he kept on with her sheep,
partly for what they meant to her, like her dahlias.
He can’t keep up. Three hours to the east he calls you
up here in the hills, because his wife used to call
your wife. Keeps you on the phone like an old woman,
alone four feet of snow, wanting to know why
sheep drop lambs in inconvenient places then lose
their hot birth scent in the blizzard. You wish you knew.
You picture his great practical barn, stingy land,
ledge, gravel, the dark unkempt house, fluorescent
halo failing to illuminate the dingy kitchen.
Out your own window, a burnished spot marks the clouds
where the sun might be. You wish you could say you’re sorry,
you’re too busy to talk, you’ll try to call later.
He shoveled half the morning to get to the shed
for snowshoes so he could tramp to the barnyard
finding here and there, six new-born lambs frozen stiff,
their red-reaped mothers calling them less and less.
As the storm settled in, he’d already fed out
the last of his own poor hay, and it took three days
before highway department crews got the roads clear
enough for an articulated front-end loader
to dig out his drive so the hay dealer could back
in and leave the trailer off the road till morning.
By dark he had to drag seven bales one by one
around the loader up to the barn by toboggan.
What made that old ewe miscarry after three days
only? He needs to understand: was it the starving
or the change in feed—first time he had ever seen
a fetus only four inches long.
There’s no help—nobody wants farm work any more.
Even the granddaughter, who used to come summers,
she’d have been some help. You can’t say that at his age
he has no need of these animals: he’s got them.
What he seeks now is answers. You think the minerals
did it? Why should the hot water in the barn stop?
It’s not that cold. Beyond a break in the wool’s growth,
three days’ hunger shouldn’t do any harm. How can
the barn roof hold up chockfull of snow and rain?
He wants reasons. What are you supposed to tell him?
You can’t tell him everything’s going to be all right.
You can’t tell him who else to call.