Sheep dung.
Feeling cold meanwhile.
Grey stones mark edge of grassy path, short green grass.
There’s a cold breeze, yet the atmosphere is quiet, sleepy, calm.
Looking at the sheep makes me feel so, often. Like today.
Rushes, rushes, some green in them, but overall brown.
From this perspective all fields look brown, except the green grass in front of me
and down the path where the sheep lie resting, not yet ruminating.
Oh yes, the rams to the right do! They’re standing.
Between me and them the sheep fence.
Glad to sit here now. This wasn’t possible in recent weather,
not with a pen and writing. My feet getting cold though.
Happy that the sheep are happy.
Straight view down to Dowra, the wet meadow of the oxen between drumlins.
More drumlins around. In the background from left to right
the whole panorama of the Boleybrack range.
But no clear view today. Hazy.
The sun is shining, sky light blue, some small greyisch clouds.
Watching the two rams teasing each other in a friendly way.
That’s how this scene feels here today.
Right beside me water in the drain that leads down the drumlin.
A large bolder there as well. Leaning against another one,
or sitting on it, keep changing my position.
The small little ragged hawthorn tree between the two rams,
Mein Freund looking over whilst ruminating.
Never sat with a pen and paper here with the sheep. It’s funny.
To know that the sheep don’t mind me doing this assures.
Light yellowish brown the overall colour: fleeces, vegetation, the mountains.
Some hazy greyisch green in plantations in the distance,
ivy’s and holly’s sparse dark-greens along field boundaries.
There’s something right here this morning, feel almost part of the flock,
but no, I’m not a sheep, am freezing by now. They don’t.
Dowra has some other colours,
and square shapes in buildings.
See mainly roofs and chimneys,
the Mart, a few new houses outside,
the tower of the fire station.
It could have been different.
The Shannon hidden by bare branched trees and shrubs,
two black cows on the next neighbour’s field look huge.
(2011)