Alpaca Shearing















Feels like an honest day’s work
Hands dirty, clothes dirty
Body fatigued
Easy to slip from attention 
to numbness
and on into sleep

Feels good to work as a team
Never abating the pace of the labor
Hum of the motion of sharing the effort —
till every last thing is done

Heat of the animals
Heaving and powerful —
Holding them firmly
while soothing them softly
Treat them with iron and silk

The sound and the smell of the shears
Precision and speed of the shearer
The texture and spring of the fiber
Gathered up quickly
and passed to the sorters
in grade labeled baskets
over the fence

And I didn’t feel tired till the pause
when a wave from behind me
rose up and engulfed me
and sent me to where
all the ambient sounds —
bird calls and bleating —
took on different meanings
drifting me closer to dream.

©Wendy Mulhern
July 2, 2012


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *