Turnbull, "A Lamb"

Yes, I saw a lamb where they’ve built a new housing

    estate, where cares are parked in garages, where streets

   have names like Fern Hill Crescent.

I saw a lamb where television aerials sprout from

    chimneypots, where young men guun their motorbikes,

    where mothers watch from windows between lace

    curtains.

I saw a lamb, I tell you, where lawns in front are neatly

    clipped, where cabbages and cauliflowers grow in back

    gardens, where doors and gates are newly painted.

I saw a lamb, there in the dusk, the evening fires just lit,

    a scent of coal-smoke in the air, the sky faintly bruised

    by the sunset.

Yes, I saw it.  I was troubled.  I wanted to ask someone,

    anyone, something, anything . . .

A man in a raincoat coming home from work but he was

    in a hurry.  I went in at the next gate and rang the

    doorbell, and rang, but no one answered.

I noticed that the lights in the house were out.  Someone

    shouted at me from an upstairs windon next door,

    “They’re on holiday.  What do you want?”  And I turned

    away because I wanted nothing

but a lamb in a green field.

Gael Turnbull