Thomas James, “Lambs”

Under branches of white lilac 
They crop the wet grass just before dawn. 
They move smokily through the half-light, smudge pots 
Pulsing against a thick morning frost. 
My watch glows like a small, improbable moon. Six o’clock. 
I have been driving into the dark too long. 

I pull to the side of the road. 
I am a branch, a stone. The lambs are not aware of me. 
They have been fading into the hillside 
Like shadows that have peopled someone’s fever 
In the shut room of a dilapidated farmhouse 
Where the walls reiterate a spray of honeysuckle. 

They ignore one another. They are blanketed with thistles, 
A little out of sorts in this shabby light. 
Five or six of them are wandering through a peach orchard, 
Not even aware of my personal squalor. 
What stumbles from their tongues is never music; 
It is the echo of a badly damaged shell. 

Now they are moving by a ditch of rainwater, 
Inspected for flaws in the foggy mirror. 
I walk into the field, I am not afraid of them – 
They scatter like the last edges of a sickness. 
The sun has begun to enlarge its tawny fleeces 
At the expense of no one in particular.

Thomas James, 1946-1974 – “Lambs” from Letters to a Stranger