Sheep Fair Day, by Kerry Hardie

Lent, Day 32

"The real aim is not to see God in all things, it is that God, through us, should see the things that we see." - Simone Weil

I took God with me to the sheep fair. I said, 'Look,
there's Liv, sitting on the wall, waiting;
there are pens, these are sheep,
this is their shit we are walking in, this is their fear.
See that man over there, stepping along the low walls
between pens, eyes always watching,
mouth always talking, he is the auctioneer.
That is wind in the ash trees above, that is sun
splashing us with running light and dark.
Those men over there, the ones with their faces sealed,
are buying or selling. Beyond in the ring
where the beasts pour in, huddle and rush,
the hoggets are auctioned in lots.
And that woman with the ruddy face and the home-cut hair
and a new child on her arm, that is how it is to be woman
with the milk running, sitting on wooden boards
in this shit-milky place of animals and birth and death
as the bidding rises and falls.'

Then I went back outside and found Fintan.
I showed God his hand as he sat on the rails,
how he let it trail down and his fingers played
in the curly back of a ewe. Fintan's a sheep-man
he's deep into sheep, though it's cattle he keeps now,
for sound commercial reasons.
...............'Feel that,' I said,
'feel with my heart the force in that hand
that's twining her wooll as he talks.'
Then I went with Fintan and Liv to Refreshments,
I let God sip tea, boiling hot, from a cup,
and I lent God my fingers to feel how it burned
when I tripped on a stone and it slopped.
'This is hurt,' I said, 'there'll be more.'
And the morning wore on and the sun climbed
and God felt how it is when I stand too long,
how the sickness rises, how the muscles burn.

... (a verse about cooling down in the river)

And later again, in the kitchen,
wrung out, at day's ending, and empty,
I showed how it feels
to undo yourself,
to dissolve, and grow age-old, nameless:

woman sweeping a floor, darkness growing.

My contribution:

Then I went back upstairs and found my man.
I showed God his hand as he replaced a beam
how he tried and fitted, and tried again
shaved off a tad more wood till it went in tight. Mike's a country man
he's deep into soil, though it's an urban semi he's working on now,
for loving family reasons.
...................'Feel that,' I said,
'feel with my heart the pain in those joints
that's fearing the future as he works.'