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

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