lamb

Today I read a poem that totally knocked me over. I've worked to press the nerve just the right amount--and go a little deeper (as Maggie teaches), especially when writing about animals in my manuscript, but I think this poem by Frannie Lindsay from her book Lamb is really just brilliant and have a hard time reading it without crying.

It's after the biblical verse from 2 Samuel 12.3:

But the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew with him and with his children; it use to eat of his morsel, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.

The Ewe Lamb

I raised my one ewe lamb
as a daughter, fed her
red clover, the last hearts
of my cabbage, offered
her inky lips my cup.
She rested her chin
on my neck at night, her hoofs
on my cloak, her breathing
the wind on the waves
of sleep’s pure waters.
Sleep: an animal’s word
for bless. hoof of her heart
to the hoof of my heart.
The dusk before her slaughter
we walked together, pauper
and kin, over the meadow.
I sang to her, then
I unstrung the rusted bell
from her collar.