Counting sheep?
That’s what we do when
we want to summon sleep.
We close our eyes and count
That bundle of black and white.

1, 2, 3…

And soon the bleating fades
Becoming clouds that float
In a dreamy eyelid landscape.
That one resembles a friend
I used to know before,
In a school that used to be
Big but now is small.

4, 5, 6…

The red bricks reconfigure
Become our childhood home.
We gather, play that game
We invented once, one lazy
Summer holiday.
I count, you run. We argue.
We laugh and laugh and laugh.

7, 8, 9…

My kite drifts higher and higher,
Outlined crisply against
The blue. I join it, weightless
And fly across the fields.
I’m met elsewhere by someone
Who doesn’t belong, not here, not now.
This interruption passes
Unnoticed. For now it makes sense.

10, 11, 12…

I’m pedaling on my bike,
Feeling great and weightless.
Roaming at will. Freedom.
I absorb the neighbourhood,
Visiting its corners,
Extremities and folds.
Its blanket smothers me.

13, 14, 15…

The face of a first girlfriend,
Holding hands, first kiss.
Long hair, guitars, the band.
Aspirations that
One day I’ll find that note
And take it around the globe.

16, 17, 18…

That sheep reminds me of
The teacher who inspired me.
See, that plant he gave me
Is growing up and up
like Jack’s beanstalk, it
devours it all. We run.

19, 20, 21…

It’s funny how the faces
We revisit, are all
The old ones, childhood ones.
Black devours white
until the morning light
brings day, and all’s forgotten.

52 and counting…

It’s National Poetry Day, and the theme is counting. I set out to write a poem about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, which is all about counting, but the poem wouldn’t have it and instead took me elsewhere. Poems do that. Not so long ago I was reminiscing with my parents, I guess that’s partly where this poem comes from – I’m 52 by the way. The older we get, the more we seem to spend in our childhood.
(03.10.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash