The Lonely Shepherd

(*SUGGESTION: Listen to "The Lonely Shepherd" by James Last, HAUSER, London Symphony Orchestra, and Robert Ziegler while reading)

One comes of clouds and white and gray

And green blankets flourish over hills

And daisies bloom in sun and fog and mist

The shepherd, calloused palms from worn oak

Yet so smooth like a river stone they do not ache

No wool is caught in cracked skin

He loves his white and gray clouds

That bleat and prance by his feet

Never aching, never sick, never unhappy

But a growing flock of color

Upon those soft, green hills

Yet, another hill sits in view

Overshadowed by its brother, only does it lie

In the cast-off lands where rain falls a second time

From the ground above, not sky

This way, young brother knows the words 

“Brown”, “wet”, and “filth” 

Ultimately closer than “green”, “sun”, and “flock”

Another shepherd wades and hobbles into sight

His calloused palms wrinkle and writhe under old spruce

Wool sticks and burrows into the cracked skin,

When not doused in mud, of course.

His clouds only number in two

Black with a containance of thunder and lightning

Clomp and stomp and huff and puff

He mourns his lifeless clouds

Never dry, never healthy, never happy

But a sad trifecta of shadow

Upon that muddy, barren hill