Slow Smoke/The Sheepherder

by Lew Sarett

CACTUS

 

Gallatin Range
Madison Basin
Beaverhead Forest
Jackson's Hole
Madison Valley,
Montana

THE SHEEPHERDER

Loping along on the day's patrol,
I came on a herder in Jackson's Hole;
Furtive of manner, blazing of eye,
He never looked up when I rode by;
But counting his fingers, fiercely intent,
Around and around his herd he went:

 One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four . . .
 Twenty and thirty . . . forty more;
 Strayed—nine ewes; killed—ten rams;
 Seven and seventy lost little lambs.

He was the only soul I could see
On the lonely range for company—
Save one lean wolf and a prairie-dog,
And a myriad of ants at the foot of a log;
So I sat the herder down on a clod—
But his eyes went counting the ants in the sod:

 One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four . . .
 Fifty and sixty . . . seventy more;
 There's not in this flock a good bell-wether!
 Then how can a herder hold it together!

Seeking to cheer him in his plight,
I flung my blankets down for the night;
But he wouldn't talk as we sat by the fire—
Coralling sheep was his sole desire;
With fingers that pointed near and far,
Mumbling, he herded star by star:

 One sheep, two sheep, three—as before!
 Eighty and ninety . . . a thousand more!
 My lost little lambs—one thousand seven!—
 Are wandering over the hills of Heaven.