Painting by Kenneth Laird
Recovering Amid The Farms
Every morning the sad girl brings
her three sheep and two lambs laggardly
to the top of the valley,
past my stone hut
and onto the mountain to graze.
She turned twelve last year
and it was legal for the father
to take her out of school.
She knows her life is over.
The sadness makes her fine,
makes me happy.
Her old red sweater makes
the whole valley ring,
makes my solitude gleam.
I watch from hiding for her sake.
Knowing I am there is hard on her,
but it is the focus of her days.
She always looks down or looks away
as she passes in the evening.
Except sometimes when, just before
going out of sight
behind the distant canebrake,
she looks quickly back.
It is too far for me to see,
but there is a moment of white
if she turns her face.
Jack Gilbert
Posted over on American Poems
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