The cattle curled in their protective sleep,
you lie on the pasture’s rise, watching stars,
eyes slowly closing, staff by your side. Deep
dream brings a strange man to you. He implores,
Sing the beginning of created things.
You—who’d never read or written, who feared
(dull herdsman, I) at the abbey to sing
before those monks and St. Hilda—feel tears,
long to bolt. Yet you stay. Your tongue forms verse
you’ve never known, shocks you awake. Somehow
you recall all. Tell your foreman. His curse
muffled below his breath, he leads you, bows
to the abbess. She hears. Touches your face.
Turns her eyes toward heaven, praising God’s grace.
Roger Armbrust
July 20, 2008
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