The sheep hug the cobbled shuck,
swords of sleet slash the sheiling,
I see his breath sworl smoke,
grass blades frost up like knives,
white sheaths.
He whistles in the wind, yells ‘go by’ -
his collie tiptoes wide arcs,
heads off strays,
shrill whistles split the glen,
kelpie eyes flick, loose sheep tighten,
hug the hedge;
the quilted mass edge
towards the gap, marked ewes
nudge past whin, briar -
thorns, barbed wire prickle,
block my view - I kick the gravel edge,
grit flicks,
the crushed wool wedge moves
down the hillside, queued sheep squeeze
through the gap
onto my gravel;
I hear his soft whistle,
head-up sheep
prance past,
granite pillars rise,
hawthorns wave;
we filter into his magnetic field.
Jim McElroy is winner of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing, the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award, the Mairtín Crawford Award, the Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Competition; also selected for Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series and nominated for Irish poem of the Year, he is a double awardee of an Individual Artist Award by Arts Council NI, second prize winner at the Bridport Poetry Awards, and a commended prize winner in the National Poetry Competition. His winning pamphlet, We Are The Weather, will be published by Smith|Doorstop.
More work by Jim McElroy
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