I've been working on a sequence of poems.
I'll read you some of those a little bit later.
In the course of which, trying to write narrative,
I'm not sure I know anymore what a narrative poem is.
But this one, I think, may be.
This is the only one that I think may be,
and it's probably because it draws on a story that I heard,
and it's called "The Trust."
Something was killing sheep, but it was sheep
this dog attended on the farm.
A black-and-white border collie, patrolling his fold
like a parish priest.
The second time the neighbor came,
claiming to have spotted the dog at night--
a crouched figure slithering toward the pen on the far side
of the county, the farmer let him
witness how the dog, alert and steady,
mended the frayed edge of the flock.
The clumped sheep calm as they drifted together
along the stony hill.
But still more sheep across the glen were slaughtered,
and the man returned more confident.
This time, the master called his dog forward,
and stroking the eager head, prised open
the mouth to find wound around the base of the back teeth--
squat molars the paws can't reach to clean--
small coils of wool, fine and stiff
like threads from his own jacket.
So he took down the rifle from the rack and shot the dog
and buried him.
His best companion in the field for seven years.
Once satisfied, the appetite is never dulled again.
Night after night its sweet insistent promise
drives the animal under the rail fence
and miles away for fresh kill, and with guilty cunning
brings him back to his familiar charges,
just now stirring in the early light--
brings him home to his proud husbandry.