The Domestication of Sheep

The first lambs were tended by women,

raised on a mother's breast, tricked

              into submission. 

Rachel means ewe; I have no other name

to bind me to anything -

              no fold to gather me.

But I do not think that to follow  

is always foolish, and there is safety too

in the convention of a likeness;

to be a religion of sheep,

                                        moved from pasture to pasture.

The inhabitants of Landes

oversaw their flock on stilts - 

                                             giants

                                                   that

                                     roamed

                                        a

                                               landscape;

shepherds

of command and direction.

The powerful will try,

              eternally,

to strip the weak of everything,

                                                  I am words spoken to a hollow

and they are wool and body and oil,

              they are milk.

And yet, the colour

of joy is still the faltered curvet

              of a newborn -

this is the economy of sheep. 
 

Image is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eugene_Verboeckhoven_-_Landscape_with_Sheep_-_1933-1-1_-_Auckland_Art_Gallery.jpg

Also on Twitter - https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GintracLandes.jpg#mw-jump-to-license